In Which If You’re Not On The List, You’re Not Coming In
on Zoe Page (Sierra Leone), 28/Oct/2010 20:17, 34 days ago
Today isBring Your Epileptics To(My)Work Day. I arrive at work and find a team from Freetown have arrived to run it. They are lead by a fab consultant from Essex who, randomly, was on our flight over and sat next to another VSO who, by process of elimination, we work out was Beth. I offer my services, and they accept. Only problem is, Kenema are slightly disorganised. There are no rooms for patients to be seen in, and there’s also been a slight cock-up over the money side of things: consultations are free but the medication costs 10 000 Leones as a set prescription fee, however the adverts that I typed to go out on the radio didn’t say anything about cash.Eventually, after much huffing and puffing 2 consultation rooms are allocated and I assign myself the role of gatekeeper. I have a list of patients who have registered and they will be seen in order. If they’re not on the list, they’re not coming in. Simple as.Except...one girl has a pushy mother who explains her daughter needs to get to school for an exam. It’s plausible as she is in uniform. We have a quick confer (me and the team...I actually have a team today!) and agree, but one of them comes out to explain to the crowd so we don’t get an angry mob moaning about queue jumping. What we do get, however, is a number of people piping upMy child has an exam too!Risking a lynching, I say that is it, no more going out of turn, which is fine until Pius shows up and beckons me over. A member of staff at the hospital needs to be seen, but he is also on the NID (National Immunization Day) work today so could do with not having to wait.... I’m not sure how I’m going to pull this one off for a moment until it clicks that there’s only one sign up sheet, I’m holding it, and I can read out the names in whichever order I want. He can’t go just yet as in an uber-organised fashion I’ve introduced a holding pen of the next 3 waiting at any one time, so they can go in as soon as a doctor is free without me having to locate them from the crowd, but I shuffle things about so he is seen straight after them. Kerching!Aside from that, they’re quite a nice crowd to control. Two of the men install themselves as my helpers, mainly with the reading of names. Horrible hand-writing plus a whole new culture makes pronunciation a little tricky at times. There are a few patients who need an interpreter (only speaking Mende, and with a doctor who only does Krio) but people waiting to be seen volunteer to help out (and, ok, jump the queue in the process).We see over 60 patients and afterwards each one comes over to Harold, the admin/finance guy with a prescription. He fills it from the copious bottles he pulls out of his backpack, counting out the tablets on a spoon and then sealing them into little zip-lock bags. No child-proof caps here. As people leave, others converge on them en masse and they huddle and whisper as if discussing state secrets. I get the impression they’re actually asking what the consultation involves and how to fake it, but interest wanes as soon as they discover they have to pay for the Phenytoine.At 2pm we are just about finished and lunch arrives: rice, cassava leaf and bottles of water. Then we head over to the UFC to deliver a seminar on spotting Epilepsy for the staff at the hospital. Remember, it's not demonic and it can be cured. It says so on the posters. It must be true...I check arrangements for tomorrow and then look miserably at the rain. I stop by my‘office’ and notice one of the Matrons is getting a lift, so I jump in too and she lives 2 houses away, and off we go in the Ambulance (!) stopping to buy bread through the window on the way home. Awesome.