It’s been another tough night for Kim. She was first on call for Saturday (24 hours to 8am this morning) and got called over to the hospital a lot. Lots of tiny (1kg) babies and very sick people. A lot of death, which must be hard to take, even though she is desensitised to an extent. The final chapter is playing out now as the hospital called the guy who should now be first on call but he didn’t answer. So Kim is now back there when she shouldn’t be. I went round to his house to wake him up, but she was already on her way. He went behind her wheel-spinning and honking at the guard to open the gate. Not, I think, from a desire to heal the sick quicker, but to avoid getting his balls booted for being unreachable. The problem is that there is little ball booting around here and no chance of getting him sacked.
It is heart-breaking for me to watch and there is nothing that I can do to help, really. I feel guilty laying in bed and I wish they would stop calling her so I could get a better sleep too. Now I am tired and pissed off, so how Kim feels must be an order of magnitude more crap.
Today we are going to Hole in the Wall to have a braai and muck about. As second on call, Kim can be 30 mins away from the hospital. If something major comes up, like a caesarean section, she will need to be driven back immediately. So fingers crossed for a quiet Sunday. I am running to HITW with Tom and the reliable Riana will do the short drive over with her.
It would be really hard to be a doctor here for lots of reasons that are obvious and lots that are not so obvious.
Sounds tough Pete. Hope next weekend is more relaxed for you both. Keep positive. You are both doing great things out there and will be making differences to people's lives that you are completely unaware of. You'll never be short of a tale to tell when you get back to the UK.
ReplyDelete