Back to 3 Day Clinic Week

The hospital administration made a decision to go back to 3 day clinic week. I think the decision was made mostly because with Alando's death, the pharmacy cannot handle the number of patients we were seeing with 5 day clinics but I feel that it was the best decision for everyone. I have been worried about how Dr. Hewitt and Dr. Dickens were going to see all the patients after Matt (the surgical resident who's been here for 6 months) and I both leave in a few weeks. Even the clinic workers and interpreters were exhausted and talking about how there were too many patients. In the month of October, we saw 16,000 patients!! Before that, the highest record in a month was 9,000! Part of it was due to the extra volunteers and being at the worst of malaria season, but it's still crazy!
Yesterday wasn't as busy as normal Mondays, but the patients are slowly coming back (I saw over 100 kids). It's been encouraging these past 2 days to see kids get better, especially after the tough weekend. Two of the kids I admitted yesterday (one who was dehydrated and one who needed blood), I was able to discharge home today because they were so much better. I walked into the wards this morning and both of them were sitting up, alert and happy. The little girl was actually asking to go to school and when I said she could go home, she got out of the bed and started walking to the door! Patients do get better and sometimes it's the seemingly “simple” but vital things such as IV fluids or a blood transfusion that is the difference of life or death. On most days I still feel like there's so much I don't know about medicine, but then there are days like today that I realize that there are children alive today because I used the gifts God has given me. Thanks for all the continued prayers and encouragement! Only 3 weeks left... pray I will finish strong!