Clerk's Notes 4: Post-Rehab
Just ended my Rehab rotation a few days ago, and it was definitely a lot more laid-back than the other rotations I've been in.
On our first day at [insert name of public orthopedic hospital], we got to try out the paraffin wax bath, which made our hands warm and glazed, like a Krispy Kreme doughnut.
Later on in the week I spent a whole day in the Spine Ward with my group. It was honestly... kind of gross.
Okay before you judge me as being maarte or elitista, hear me out. In this public hospital, they do not throw away gloves after using them. Because patients are too poor to afford new gloves, nurses usually wash and rewash existing gloves to save money. This is, in no way, the fault of the nurses. It's simply that this hospital has not been receiving adequate funding from DOH and cannot afford to spare any expenses on things like clean gloves. Other things I'm sure they reuse are catheters (the tubes that go inside people's bladders through their urethras).
That thing you see in the above photo is what I call a "catheter cart." I call it so because it's where the nurses dump the urine of all their cathetered patients during "catheter rounds." See, at a certain hour in the day, one nurse will go around inserting tubes into patients who have difficulty peeing. With a catheter in place, their pee flows out of the bladder, into the tubes, finally trickling into a silver kidney basin. Ideally, that nurse would then take that kidney basin to the bathroom and then flush the pee down the toilet.
But since there are so many patients and only one nurse, it is much simpler for her to wheel around this red bucket on a cart (see photo). Instead of going to the bathroom after collecting the pee of each patient, she only needs to dump the pee into this bucket, wheel the cart to the next patient, and then repeat the process.
In short, at several times of the day, that bucket is filled with the urine of around 10 to 20 patients. In varying shades of yellow and red (most of these patients are taking a drug called rifampicin, which makes your pee turn red).
So yeah... It's pretty disturbing, to be honest. Not to mention all the stray cats that roam the wards freely. (They come in through the wide open windows.)
So I seriously have so much respect for all the people that work here - the nurses, the PTs, the OTs, the doctors. Despite the challenges of working in a resource-limited setting, they still have the energy to be warm and kind to their patients (and to us clerks too).
. . .
Personally though the most difficult thing about being in this hospital is the commute to and from it. It's not accessible by any train or bus rides, so my best bet is to take a Grab or Uber, which can cost anywhere from 250 to 550! Even when I'm splitting the ride fare with my groupmates, the costs still add up since we go there almost every day.
. . .
Okay I know this blog has been one big whine thus far, and really the only reason I'm writing now is to be able to have some new content with my new blogger theme hehe. What do you guys think? Should I keep it?
(Actually it doesn't much matter what you think because I am keeping it regardless.)
Til the next weekend.
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| On our last day of Radiology in [private hospital]. This has nothing much to do with Rehab but I just wanted a comparison pic of what it's like to be in a private hospital. So cushy and nice. (Also I needed a nice photo for the thumbnail for Facebook.) |
Later on in the week I spent a whole day in the Spine Ward with my group. It was honestly... kind of gross.
Okay before you judge me as being maarte or elitista, hear me out. In this public hospital, they do not throw away gloves after using them. Because patients are too poor to afford new gloves, nurses usually wash and rewash existing gloves to save money. This is, in no way, the fault of the nurses. It's simply that this hospital has not been receiving adequate funding from DOH and cannot afford to spare any expenses on things like clean gloves. Other things I'm sure they reuse are catheters (the tubes that go inside people's bladders through their urethras).
That thing you see in the above photo is what I call a "catheter cart." I call it so because it's where the nurses dump the urine of all their cathetered patients during "catheter rounds." See, at a certain hour in the day, one nurse will go around inserting tubes into patients who have difficulty peeing. With a catheter in place, their pee flows out of the bladder, into the tubes, finally trickling into a silver kidney basin. Ideally, that nurse would then take that kidney basin to the bathroom and then flush the pee down the toilet.
But since there are so many patients and only one nurse, it is much simpler for her to wheel around this red bucket on a cart (see photo). Instead of going to the bathroom after collecting the pee of each patient, she only needs to dump the pee into this bucket, wheel the cart to the next patient, and then repeat the process.
In short, at several times of the day, that bucket is filled with the urine of around 10 to 20 patients. In varying shades of yellow and red (most of these patients are taking a drug called rifampicin, which makes your pee turn red).
So yeah... It's pretty disturbing, to be honest. Not to mention all the stray cats that roam the wards freely. (They come in through the wide open windows.)
So I seriously have so much respect for all the people that work here - the nurses, the PTs, the OTs, the doctors. Despite the challenges of working in a resource-limited setting, they still have the energy to be warm and kind to their patients (and to us clerks too).
. . .
Personally though the most difficult thing about being in this hospital is the commute to and from it. It's not accessible by any train or bus rides, so my best bet is to take a Grab or Uber, which can cost anywhere from 250 to 550! Even when I'm splitting the ride fare with my groupmates, the costs still add up since we go there almost every day.
. . .
Okay I know this blog has been one big whine thus far, and really the only reason I'm writing now is to be able to have some new content with my new blogger theme hehe. What do you guys think? Should I keep it?
(Actually it doesn't much matter what you think because I am keeping it regardless.)
Til the next weekend.
Love reading your blog.
ReplyDeleteKeep it up!
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