We are midway through our 2nd week at KCMC. I think we are getting more accustomed to the new hospital, and a bit more helpful to the other residents and doctors there in the process.
LIfe in the hospital here is very different than in Dallas. It's making me very thankful for the resources and support staff we have at Children's. We have seen sickle cell pain crises, lots of malaria, pneumonia, sepsis, and much more heart disease than I was expected. We even saw a case of measles. Strep pharyngitis goes untreated more often here than in the states, so it's not uncommon to see rheumatic heart disease. Unfortunately, there is only one hospital that sees patients who need cardiac surgery, and even if they're referred there there is no guarantee that they will be a candidate for the trip to India for the surgery. We have several medications to help with symptoms but very little we can do to fix the underlying problems. It can be very sad.
Another big struggles is not being able to communicate with the patients. Back home I can talk to 99.9% of my patients in either English or Spanish, but here I feel very dependent on others due to my lack of Swahili knowledge. It also makes it difficult to win the trust of the children or make them feel at ease, so even non language-dependent things like physical exams can be more challenging.
The payment system here is also very different. There are very few people who have either government or private insurance, so the majority of our patients are self-pay. Which means that before any test can be done the child's parents have to pay for it and bring a receipt. I'd imagine this is a significant financial burden for many families, and may be one of the reasons some families wait so long to seek medical care.
We are learning a lot, and trying to be as helpful as we can. Thanks for reading, and for your prayers & support!
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