Linoleum, fantasies and vitamins

After 3 weeks of extreme tiredness, 2 weekends spent in bed and more dizzy spells, I visited the MSF hospital in Leogane today. I was reluctant to go for various reasons and didn’t want to admit I was unwell, you have to be strong and resistant here, no place for the weak!

The gates opened onto the MSF hospital, a series of containers and tents set up around sheltered waiting areas. People sat on wooden benches, staring into space or at the water tanks and hand written instructions: “wash your hands here”. You can clearly see the different sections of the hospital, gynecology and midwifery, pharmacy, physiotherapy, lab and emergencies. I could walk, talk and look after myself and didn’t think I qualified as an emergency. Outside the emergency doors, surrounded by ropes and wires hanging from the metal roof about 10 people are waiting. A couple of women are weeping and groaning under the pain. One holds her head in her hands and hits her head screaming that it’s hurting inside. I walk around the container, walk passed the crowded bedrooms with their open windows, the sheetless beds and their lack of privacy, I’m trying to find someone to talk to and check where I should wait. I finally find a doctor, Haitian, very handsome with almond shaped eyes, he is busy on his blackberry but lets me know he won’t be long. I wait. He tells me this is the right place for me, I need to sit down and wait, he will come over and examine me. I wait again and look at the hanging ropes and wires, trying to work out what they are for. MSF Hospital, raw necessities, low resources, they have to be drip holders.

A very frail and thin old man walks towards the door, he is carrying a young boy in a school uniform, the young boy is asleep or comatose, I’m not sure. He lays him on the bench and quietly waits. No one approaches them to find out what’s wrong. They wait and I feel an urge to go, I’m just tired, I’m not hurt, I don’t need to be here. One of the cleaning ladies tells us that doctors can’t examine patients on a chair or bench, they have to be seen on a bed and all beds are full. I don’t need a bed and I tell my colleague I can go home, I’m fine, just tired, someone else will need the bed more than I do. As I’m ready to leave, the handsome Haitian doctor invites me into the emergency room. He shows me to bed number  1, stuck in the corner, next to a half naked old lady who is panting and groaning. The bed is a basic metal frame with a mattress and a sheet of linoleum on top of it. It’s shimmering, sign that it has been freshly wiped. The doctor goes to a bucket of water, washes his hands, squirts antiseptic gel and starts the examination. He tries to pull the green curtain made out of various bits of material, it still doesn’t close completely and worries about it, I tell him it’s fine. He has a soft and warm voice and carries on the examination. He runs his hand on my stomach, my arms and makes casual conversation. He needs to listen to my lungs and asks permission to unhook my bra. I let him do so and notice that he is struggling and for less than a second I’m getting a sense of comedy within the situation. I breathe in and out a couple of times and it’s time to re-hook the bra. I try to do it but he insists in doing it. He does get the two pieces together and as he finishes the task I feel the elastic pinching my skin,  he moans and says “ouch” as he catches his finger in one of the hooks. He then adds, “I’m not very good at doing these things, it’s on the first hook.” Pats me on the back and I nod to show I’m fine, I don’t mind, but I’m hiding a smile, I really want to laugh. The most intimate moment I’ve had for weeks is on a piece of linoleum, in an overcrowded field hospital, a slight fantasy emanates from the situation and in my dizziness I try and wipe it away fast. The fantasy vanishes as he tells me one of my lungs is weak and he sends me for xray and more tests. Blood is drawn out after 3attempts, all needles being too thick. I’m given the tricky but hilarious task to pee in a tiny ziplock bag (smaller than my hand). I call onto my flexibility to achieve the contortionist’s like task in a non lit toilet and just about remember not to hold the bag between my teeth whilst I get dressed again.  Then there is the xray and who says lungs says chest and who says chest says breasts and who says breasts says 3 young Haitian doctors lined up in front of me, mumbling in creole as I undress and hug the cold slab. I’m ready and one of them says: “ do something with your hair” now that’s another challenge for flexibility I don’t want to move, I don’t have an elastic band…I look at them and ask for a pen which I use as a hairpin to fix my hair. The challenge over I go back to the emergency room where I am summoned to go back on the linoleum sheet until I get the results. I look around, the young comatose boy is not in the room. He is outside and has regained consciousness, he is walking. One of the weeping ladies laughed with me at the lab, she is in pain but will be able to walk home. It’s an incredible place, it does not look like a hospital from the outside but doctors and nurses are professional all the way and real efforts are made to attend the patients with respect, even when there is a long wait and white faces around to jump the queue. 4 hours later and after thorough examination, the doctor finally diagnoses me with a general burn out, a drop in my blood count and a weak lung. He prescribes vitamins and a week off, I know I will get the vitamins but not the latter.

Peace and vitamin filled hugs to you all!