Original recipe or extra crispy??!! 11 herbs-n-spices...



The Orthopaedic floor at JFK Hospital-Monrovia, Liberia

 Rounds today were good.  I have to give a shout out to the nurses on the Orthopaedic floor here.  Some of them work very hard.  Considering all the stuff they have to deal with, many of them do a great job.  Here the nurses do all of the dressing changes, unless instructed otherwise.  And from many of the cases I've described, you can imagine that they're not small dressings...sometimes the patients will actually want the nurses to change their bandage rather than me!  They each have 3 rooms with 4 patients each-that's 12 patients; they're really understaffed it seems. 
 


Monrovia Rehabilitation Center (MRC). "False feet!"

I'm having a bit of an issue with bed availability now.  There are a couple of patients who have been discharged, but they can't afford to pay their bills so they can't be released from the hospital.  And there are patients in the ER waiting for beds b/c they need surgery and are just in a holding pattern b/c the patients upstairs on the ward can't go home!  See how frustrating it can be?!!  One guy has been discharged for a week, but his family won't bring the money to pay the remainder of his bill.  He has a family member in the states who supposedly sends money over, but the family just takes the money and uses it up while he sits around in the hospital!  He's really depressed about it-I'm trying to get the social worker to help him out..



Young girl being fitted for her "false foot."



Clinic was clinic today.  Some interesting stuff as always.  It started off a bit unusual though-there were 3 "VIP" patients in a row.  Anyway...so I learned more about this herbalist today!  I had this lady who came to see me complaining of arm pain after she had sustained a humerus fracture 6 months ago.  She was treated by herbie (LOL-I kinda like that one!) who "hauled" on it, but she never got better.  I'm at the point now where I just start asking patients straight up about their experience with this type of medicine, how much they're being charged, why they insist on going, etc.  Helps me understand the culture a bit better.  So she tells me a story of how the herbalist will instruct people to bring a chicken and some oil to him after which he will break the chicken's leg.  He will then "treat" the chicken's leg, and if it heals then the patient will heal their fracture.  If the chicken doesn't heal, the patient doesn't heal.  You should've seen my face when I heard that one.  I then asked her "well, what happened to the chicken??" to which she replied, "he ate it!"  You really should've seen my face after that one!!!  This guy has patients bring him chicken and money!!  She was a good sport about it and realized that she had been dooped.  I made her laugh when I said "...so I guess that means I have to eat your arm now!!"



Members of "Thaaaaaaa Church!!!"

Anyway, I'll take good care of her and hopefully she'll have a better outcome.  I think my last meal here will be some Popeye's or KFC with herbie!  I just need one of you guys to ship a bucket over here!

Short and sweet. Have a good night.

"Patience with others is love, patience with self is hope, patience with God is faith."

-Adel Bestavros