Finished Paeds

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So today was my last day of Paediatrics. These past two weeks have definitely gone quite quick.

Today I went to the outpatient clinic which is based at the new hospital. Apparently the outpatient clinics are the only thing that is finished, and Victoria hospital doesn't actually have any rooms for clinics, so they moved there last month. It is a much nicer hospital. Proper flooring, proper chairs, proper examination beds. Still no computers though, and not even a digital scale for babies. They have to move a weight along a scale until it balances to weigh the babies. But it is nice. It's a shame its not properly finished and funded so they can use the wards. It's much cleaner and they have proper sinks in all of the rooms.

The patients don't have an appointment time, they all just come at 8am and get given a number. When your number is called, you see the doctor. Some of them have to wait hours. Luckily today wasn't busy, but the clinics can run until 12 or 1pm. And those patients have been waiting since around 8. It's a crazy system.

It rained a lot today, so a lot of patients didn't show. But the doctors didn't show either. There were meant to be two paediatric doctors, and at 9:45, one finally came, but said the other wasn't. The fracture clinic still didn't have a doctor at 11am when I left. So there were 10 patients who'd been there since 8am and there wasn't even a doctor to see them. The nurses don't have contact numbers for the doctors though, so they were all just waiting and hoping someone would come eventually.



The only interesting patient I saw was a baby with microcephaly. It literally means small head, but if you google some photos, you'll see that the skull is also a bit deformed. Most people with it will be mentally and physically disabled and have seizures. It can be caused by a few things like genetics or drugs and alcohol in pregnancy, but at the moment, there are quite a few babies being born with it because of Zika virus. If you have Zika virus whilst pregnant, your baby can get microcephaly. They think that is what happened with this mother. It's sad because Zika can be fairly asymptomatic with you just feeling a bit flu-like for a few days, so a lot of people don't even know they've got it. There's also no vaccine yet. So apparently a lot of babies in South America and the Caribbean are now being born with microcephaly.



Next week I'm onto A&E and I imagine that will be even more eye opening

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