The following story is a true account of my experience in the Holy Spirit Hospital in Makeni city, Sierra Leone. I have tried my best to recount these events as accurately as possible . My hope is that this story will help to open your eyes to the realities of living in a developing country. However, this is not an attempt to make you feel guilty or to upset you, this experience changed the way I viewed the West forever and it is one that wish to share with you. Take it as you will.
Wednesday 14th August, 2013 - Approximately 10pm
I have passed out several times, my head is pounding and all I want to do is sleep. When I am awake my team leader, Eric looks worried sick while my room mate Ellen and my team mate Bella cradle me. Jebbeh, our field officer has arrived and brings an air of calm to a somewhat irrate atmosphere, after I beg people to leave my room Bella and Ellen get me out of my cow print onesie and into something that is a little less weird looking. When I applied for this placement I never imagined that my team mates would have to undress me. I am bundled into a small 4x4 and all I can think about is how the upholstery smells like wet cat. I am vaguely aware that Jebbeh's sister Esther is in the back of the car with me.
The hospital is dead, I can't believe that there is no one here. It is rainy season, a time when practically everyone is sick and the place is empty! Then my brain kicks in and reminds me that this is Sierra Leone and emergency care does not exist here, at least not in a form that we would recognise in the West. After I faceplant a random hospital trolley for several minuets someone hauls me into a wheel chair and escorts me through to the private wing. This area is seperated from the rest of the hospital by a guard and iron bars. The room is tidy, clean-ish and basic, there are two hospital beds and I notice that only one is made up for a patient. I climb onto the bed and quickly assume the foetel position, a beautiful nurse with her lip pierced enters the room and starts to prepare an IV. I begin to sob quietly, the last few days of travelling and sickness has finally caught up with me and if I am honest I do not trust the nurses. Lip-pierced nurse tells me to stop crying with the bedside manner of a honey badger, when I don't stop she asks me why I am crying, I lie and say it is because I don't like needles. A crying girl is the last thing she wanted and to be honest I don't blame her.
Jebbeh makes sure I am settled in and then leaves Esther with me for the night. Jebbeh is tall with beautiful features and dreadlocks, while Esther is small with huge brown eyes and beautifully plaited hair. Once I am connected to a drip that looks like piss Esther helps me into bed and adjusts my mosquito net around my bed. As I settle in for the night I hear what sounds like a young boy crying and moaning in the next room. I am annoyed because I am desperately tired and really want to sleep, when I ask Esther what the boy is saying she tells me that he keeps asking for water. The boy cries for what seems like hours and then all of a sudden he is silent, a few minutes later his parents begin to scream and howl, the sound pierces my soul and I know I will never forget it. The mother becomes so hysterical that she is slapped across the face, I don't how long they cry for, all I know is that the boy has died.
Thursday 15th August, 2013 - Morning
I wake to find lip-pierced nurse removing the drip that looks like piss and attaching a clear bottle of fluid. I ask her what it does and she says it will make me better. "Yes, I get that" I think but I hold my tongue, "aye, but what does it actually do?", she says it is for diarrhoea. I assum it is rehydration treatment. Once lip-pierced nurse has left I read the bottle, "Sodium Chloride and Glucose", I can't help but feel proud of myself for remembering some of my GCSE chemistry. Esther insists that I wash my feet and change my clothes, despite my protests she ushers me into the private bathroom which smells of crap and proceeds to wash my feet with her bare hands. I have never been treated so well by someone who is not a blood relative. As she helps me change my top a random man peers through the open door and says hello. I greet him back, mentally noting that I am sitting in my trackies and bra.
Esther leaves and I decide to read Fifty Shades of Grey on my phone. A more senior nurse comes in and hands me a cup of pills, "What are they for?" I ask her, she looks really confused for a few moments then replies "They will help you get better." Okay the language barrier has raised it's ugly head again, "What do they do?", every word a staccato. The doctor prescribed them she replies, Christ, I mentally face palm. Eventually she tells me that they are anti-malarials, painkillers and vitamins, malaria is so common in Sierra Leone that if you have a fever and headache they treat you for malaria even if they haven't tested for it.
I reach a particularly inappropriate part of Fifty Shades when a young man comes in to take my blood and urine sample. He uses plastic tubing to try and raise a vein, I remember that every doctor in the UK has complimented me on the quality of my veins and has never needed to use tubing to raise a one! Compared to a local I am practically see through, why in God's name do they need to raise a vein! Despite my frustration I find myself giggling at my thoughts as the young man continues to smack my arm with the most confused look on his face.
Ellen has arrived, she has long, thick brown hair and the loveliest brown eyes. I am so glad to see her. She tells me that the rest of the team will try and see me later. After she leaves I slip into a heavy sleep about my team fighting off a grizzly bear with flip flops. When I wake Kristine and Alice are here, Krsitine is a tall Latvian with the biggest smile and Alice has long blond hair and the funniest laugh you will ever hear. They have brought chocolate and biscuits, it is the first thing I have eaten since yesterday. My national counterpart Sahr, arrives shortly aterwards. After and hour or so Kristine and Sahr leave to conduct home visitations for some of our students. I am relieved and happy that Alice has decided to stay with me. We talk for a long time about everything and anything, we spend most of our time laughing.
Lip-pierced nurse attaches another drip, I ask her the usual questions and receive the usual non-answers. Alice suppresses a giggle as I look at her and raise my eyebrows as if to say "see what I mean!?". Bella bursts through the door and shuffles across the room to me with a take away box of breaded chicken, she is an angel and has walked a long way to deliver this to me. I really am blessed with such a wonderful team of people, I can't believe they care this much about me.
When the day draws to a close I hear people singing near by, it is hynm in Temne, I think it is a hymn for the boy who died.
Jane should be arriving soon with a bag of clean clothes, I am sweaty and stink to high heaven. The doctor was supposed to see me again today, when I enquire where he is the nurse tells me that he went home at 4.30pm. I am shocked and somewhat disgusted, is this normal for all doctors in Sierra Leone? Is there a shortage of doctors? Is this why the boy died, because there was no doctor to treat him? I decide to be a little more patient with my nurses, it is not their fault if the only doctor for this hospital buggers off at 4.30pm in his white BMW (This is not embellishment, I actually seen it) and doesn't explain to his patient why she is connected to what looks like a bag of piss.
My IV has come out and I think I am going to be sick, the nurse removes it completely, then mumbles something angrilly in Krio and leaves. An hour later lip-pierced nurse is back with an accomplice. He is in a tye dye t-shirt and is putting on plastic gloves, I immediately think he is going to inject me in the ass and the nurse registers my fear. She tells me that he is a doctor and is here to put a new IV in. Oh, okay, so the white people get doctors who come out at stupid o'clock to put IVs in but not to treat a dyng boy? Tye dye doctor and lip-pierced nurse leave as I grapple with the unsettling thought that I am being treated better than others because I am white and am insured for £1million. worth of medical treatment.
Part 2 will posted tomorrow...
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