Friday is a holiday (African Unity Day) so we all have the day off tomorrow. On the last weekend of every month, Projects Abroad hosts a party for all the volunteers in Ghana. The one for this month is on Friday night, in Accra. We plan to make a weekend out of it: head to Accra during the day, go to the party tomorrow night, and then visit the Aburi wood market and a bead place on Saturday. It should be good.
Obstetrics this week was okay. I didn’t enjoy it as much as Radiology, but it was still interesting. Compared to Pediatrics and Radiology, the Obstetrics department was huge. There are almost forty beds (Pediatrics had twelve, and Radiology had one small waiting room), and every bed is full. The women in the beds are the ones who have paid for their health insurance or can afford the medical bills. One of the doctors showed us a hallway and small room (closet, really) where they put the women who can’t pay for treatment. It’s both sad and shocking to see women with their very small newborn babies lying on the dirty floor of this hallway. As he pointed at them the doctor accused many of them of faking poverty in order to get out of paying medical bills. Appallingly, he said that they send someone from the hospital home with them to check that they are actually too poor to pay. What a stunning display of faith in people.
The cases varied to some extent with some women in the hospital for ovarian cysts, some with uterine fibroids, some with newborn babies, and a few others with a range of things. Doing Radiology before Obstetrics was a good idea, as we saw ultrasounds of many of these cases last week. I watched a procedure for uterine fibroids (definitely no embolization here) but sadly, or maybe not, didn’t get to see any births.
On Wednesday we did a medical outreach session at Lady Heike School. The kids were adorable, as usual. Again, we went with a nurse who spoke to them about personal hygiene and then we dressed minor wounds.
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