Mar 17, 2014

This past week has continued to slow down so that we actually have some empty beds. There are always some malaria patients and some that we don’t know for sure what is wrong. Even the maternity area is slower now. I guess 9 months ago everyone was busy planting their crops in beginning of rainy season.

The devil is still active trying to take away from the story of love. We had a man brought in Sabbath that had a fractured tibia and fibula from a car accident; also a big laceration that we stitched, then he was told that he could stay on the gurney that was padded and we would fix the fracture with a SIGN nail the next morning (Sunday). Sunday morning when I was starting rounds I saw that there were a lot of people in this little “private” room and that there was no one on the gurney but the patient was lying on the floor so he could be in the private room. There were a bunch of “native healers” (witch doctors) doing their sticks around his leg and several beside bowing and doing some sort of incantations (maybe prayers) and the patient is now refusing surgery. He was a big chief and had all these followers that thought they were above hospital rules or anything else. I told them they had to leave if that was what they were doing. They did not, so I got Danae involved as her French is better than mine; but they would not pay any respect or attention to either one of us. We got the guard involved and finally they did leave and the patient left on the ambulance and said they would be back to get surgery but he had to do some business at home. Of course he has not come back yet. I’m sure that he never paid anything for hospital or the ambulance. Maybe they will come back after it is all infected or healed in bad position. One would think that a chief if he is so important would want the best care possible, but such is not the case.

There has also been some sort of mass hysteria among the school age girls in school. They would have “convulsions” but not lose consciousness and one would touch another girls then she would have these spells also. Olen saw some of them in the “Urgence” and everything was normal except they way they acted. When told they would be admitted to the Peds ward they would be all right and walk home on their power. I understand that there were so many involved that they closed down the schools in town. Some were suggesting that it was demon possession or some manifestation of Satanism. It is possible but they would also respond to painful stimuli appropriately.

We had another perforated gastric ulcer Sat night which seems to be doing ok so far post op. We also had another cancer of the bladder a few days ago. We continue to have the usual hernias and hydroceles and abcesses. We may not get much over a 100 procedures for this month.

Kermit (Olen's dad) is here for a week helping Olen with administrative stuff.

Addison and Zane both have malaria and are taking meds ok and doing ok.

Phone is 235-914-532-26
Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com
Love, Rollin and Dolores