Week 5 done

---

I've now finished week 5. Just 3 more weeks to go, it's definitely flying by.

Haven't posted in a while because there hasn't been a lot.



On Wednesday, it was the England football match, so the girls and I took a bus down to Rodney bay to meet the boys at the bar to watch it. I'm not sure if I've written much about the buses here. They are 15 or 16 seater minibuses. They come in all different colours, no logos or anything, drivers don't wear uniforms. You only know its a bus because it will usually have a green sticker in the front to say where it's going. There are bus stops, but you can flag the bus down anywhere, even on the highway, and it will stop for you. Same with getting off - just tell the driver when to stop. There's no bus schedule, but there's a bus driving by the main routes every couple of minutes. There aren't many seats, so sometimes you'll have a few drive past you because they are full. If you're at the start of a route, the bus won't leave until it is full, so sometimes you can be waiting a little while for that as well. Travelling in a group is impossible. Us three girls just about manage, but the six boys have always had to split up to get on a bus.



So the game was fun, even if we lost. We had Mexican food again, and this time we got a taxi home.



As for the hospital, there's just been a lot of COPD and heart failure, so nothing too exciting. Although we did have a man with Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (probably heard of it as broken heart syndrome). He was in his forties, and had to rush his sister to hospital as she had collapsed. As he was seeing her being assessed, he started to have chest pains and shortness of breath and had to be admitted himself. Whilst his ECG looked a bit like a heart attack, his blood results were normal, so the doctor's suspect Takotsubo.

Also the homeless man with the crazy blood results is still alive and well. I last saw him on the ward sitting up, talking and eating breakfast. No idea how.

Today the ward was pretty crazy. I think I mentioned before that another hospital is temporarily housed in a sports stadium here. Well, it was meant to be temporary, but it's been nine years, the roof is starting to fall in and nearly hit people, but the government won't do anything. So yesterday the doctors went on a sort of strike. I say sort of, because they decided to all take their sick leave simultaneously, so there was no one at all to care for patients. So the patients they had were all sent to Victoria hospital. VH doesn't have enough beds for them all though. So the A&E department currently has 17 very sick patients who all need beds on the wards just sat around in treatment bays and the waiting room. All of these have had to stay overnight, just trying to sleep on fold-up chairs in the busy ER with lots of noise. So this morning they weren't happy at all. They were all kicking off and threatening to go home. So today was pretty hectic.



And tomorrow, we hike the Pitons! We're leaving at about 6:30am to get there for 8, to try and hike up and down before it gets too hot and humid. So I definitely need my sleep. But there should be good pictures tomorrow.

---

Photos

buses
Google image of the buses here

FB_IMG_1531327137285
Us on the bus

IMG_20180711_122247
Inside of the bus (its super cramped and sweaty when full

IMG_20180711_133051
Alex and I at the bar sitting away from the football crowd

IMG_20180711_153305
The bar when the football match was on. Packed with tourists.