Last night a boat came across with 50 people and the above image is the life jacket worn by a child, crossing the Agean! We have been asking Omar for life jackets for our bracelet project that Nancy is working on – we were appalled when he delivered this to us.
A rough day, many emergencies. 3 people sent out to the hospital. Georgia had a woman who was really suicidal. She had arrived three days ago; the mother of 5 kids, the youngest 7 months. She tightened her scarf around her neck and pulled hard, blocking her airway.
Ines had a 13 year-old with seizures, while treating the daughter the mother fainted, out cold on the floor. She turned out to have a cardiac condition.
I had a 22 year-old young man who says he woke up with this infected pimple that had a red line of infection running up his arm. We shot him up with antibiotics and will see him tomorrow.
Leslie saw a young man from Senegal who had been beaten many times, raped, abused and tortured and was likely HIV positive. He was so beaten down, it was heart wrenching. There is nothing that can be done for him, though he is severely traumatized. A psych evaluation is months away, if ever.
Hadi closed the clinic for 30 minutes today. He just shut it down because there was a threatening, demanding patient in triage. I don’t know the details . . . I was just too busy to find out details. Scott is sick – we are missing him as security.
I am doing wound management on many infected injuries and post-surgical incisions. Wounds get infected when people can’t clean themselves. People have few clothes and wear the same thing over and over. A young man today did not want me to put ointment on the infected scabies on his back because it would stain the ONLY shirt he had. I notice some people have no change of underwear. Omar will be opening the new warehouse very soon and will start clothing distribution, for underwear, warm clothes etc.
Tomorrow we have an all team meeting and then I am going to a meeting with the other NGOs providing healthcare. There are so many issues to address in this broken system.
We are all tired tonight and missing Marine who returned to Switzerland this morning!
