Pediatrics

Week 4... After many weeks of learning to live in zambia(sorry i dont have a comma working on my computer) and being at the hospital and seeing the dirt the understaffed wards the sense of lack of compassion.  Even though i know that Zambians are taught not to show thier feelings but do in fact care and that death happens so often here i think that they need to tune out their emotions to get through the day.
This 4th week has by far been the hardest week.  I am not a mother in fact i am very uncomfortable around children and have not experienced a lot of things with children.  So i picked the pediatric ward to push myself out of my comfort zone and try an area of nursing that scared me.  I was however not at all ready for all the emotions and sadness that i have seen this week.

The childrens ward is set up where there is one side surgical and one side medical and there were many children all with varying diseases and ailments.  Still something i will never truly understand that is part if the Nursing job is to clean the ward before you even talk to or assess a pt.  Howevr it still seems that no matter how much cleaning gets done it never even touches the surface of the dirt in the hospital.
Day one-  I was very anxous to start on the floor but knew i had it in me to care well for the children.  My heart and mind were not at all prepared for what i saw.  So many sick children who cant be properly cared for due to the small amount of staff and the nursing students had thier practical exams this week.  So many sick children have no pain management and cry because they have been burned or have some really horrific wounds that U wonder how the heck did they get that and what can i do to help.  After the first day i realized that i was on a mission to do whatever i could. 

We also had a father that had very little interest in the care of his child and we tried our best to get him involved as the boy was very sick.  Unfortnately the child passed away and being on a ward with children this is the first time that I have experienced death of children.  The way that they nurse and take care of the sick in Zambia is something that i hope we can educate and bring more knowledge about so that we can help them provide better pt care
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This week proved to be the hardest on me so far many sick children a very traumatic death in the ICU and just feeling like i was unable to help all the children that needed it.  This experience this week is very hard to describe one i will never forget and it came with a growth that i will definately take with me when i go back to nurse in Canada so thank you for the heartache the saddness and the making me work out of my comfort zone.  Zambia has taught me many things about who i am as a nurse and helped me realize that we are all good nurses and i would not trade this experience for anything in the world
Susie