Thursday, May 29, 2008

Where to Begin?

Yesterday was a busy day. First thing, I brainstormed several ways that I could maximize the usage of the few meds that we have in the clinic, especially those that are in high demand such as those used for treating ringworm, jock itch, fungus, scabies etc. The children will be leaving school soon for the summer and the orphanage will be down to about 100 kids during the summer months. This will serve as a perfect opportunity to sterilize and better equip their rooms to prevent against increased exposure to diseases such as malaria. I'll be heading over to the homes today to take note of things that need to be done.
I'm having 500 Haiti bracelets made that I'll be bringing up with me in August to sell so if you'd like to buy one for $5 please let me know. The money will go towards the cost of making and shipping them, the arts and crafts program here at the orphanage and towards my work on infectious diseases.
Dr. Cynthia, the medical director at Espwa, added a few more duties to my to-do list. These include, coordinating along with the TB program, a malaria control and prevention program to put into action immediately and write up as a grant proposal.
Starting the case registry for all of the children, has already proven more difficult than I anticipated. The food riots and manifestations that just happened in Haiti, put everything at a standstill including the country's healthcare and with that, medical records were discontinued and now the latest information I have on the TB drug regimens is from January of this year. the last 3-4 months have gone unrecorded. Currently, the 640 or so children at the orphanange are split up into one-room concrete buildings with several dozen in each. They share 4-5 to a bed and have no screens on the windows or bednets to protect them from the swarms of mosquitos that come at dawn and dusk. Malaria is like the common cold here, but that is not to downplay how terrible of a disease it truly is. Muscle pain, nausea, headaches, diarrhea, dehydration, neck and back pain, fevers, chills and blurred vision are all symptoms of Malaria. This is a completely preventable and treatable disease, but because of the lack of resources (mainly financial resources) we're forced to watch these kids fall ill and suffer unjustly.
There is so much I want to write but never enough time to do it. I feel guilty sitting at my computer, knowing how much has to be done. I've decided that the best way for me to go about getting things done day to day is by setting a large number of small goals each day so that something is always being accomplished.
Today's goals:
*Inspect children's living quarters for areas of concern regarding malaria prevention and draft a proposal and prevention plan
*Meet with the Assistant Director of the orphanage to try and develop an updated list of all the children so that I can match their medical profiles and or start one for them.
*Question people about the missing 50 dose PPD vial that is gone from the storage refrigerator. We still have roughly 45 children who have yet to be tested for Tuberculosis and I need the PPD serum to do so.
*Create a more user-friendly database for INH treatment and begin entering the treatment numbers for the 350 or so children who tested positive for latent/active TB over the last two years
Ok, so maybe these aren't necessarily "small" goals, but I'm feeling the time crunch and the to-do list continues to grow...

1 comment:

V said...

Create a more user-friendly database for INH treatment and begin entering the treatment numbers for the 350 or so children who tested positive for latent/active TB over the last two years

Will, is there something that I can do from here to create that more user friendly data base? I am an expert with data bases!
V

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