Just to be there….

We have an easy morning on Friday in our operating theatre but when we set off for lunch, there’s a pregnant lady bleeding severely while she’s in labour. So without second thought and forget about the lunch, we did a caesarian section for her, again this lady has a placenta lying low down and covering the cervical opening so much, so I had to cut through the placenta to reach the baby which luckily have a strong cry once delivered. But this is not the end of the story, a twin brother was waiting for the new world and both of them are doing fine. Without our project there, there would be 3 deaths happening at the same time today! So just to be there, makes the difference! 4:30am on Saturday morning, the whole operating theatre team was back in the hospital resuscitating a pregnant lady with ruptured uterus. Her condition was critical. During the operation a dead fetus found and not only the uterus ruptured but also the urinary bladder which was torn wide open. I tried my best to repair everything but the lady already bleed a lot before the operation. We were all worrying that she can’t make it in despite of the successful operation. She really needed blood transfusion but there were no “O+” in the blood bank and because of cultural belief, all of her relatives refused blood donation, so we can only hope for the best. Around noon on Saturday when I was doing a skin graft for a burn patient who is 6 years old with a deep burn in his left arm and forearm, Our electricity was completely down for 3 minutes whereby his oxygen extractor machine was not working and he was in general anaesthesia. I was so worry that I couldn’t concentrated on my part despite I’ve a dry battery light. What’s the point of a successful operation when the patient died for another reason. These are some of the frustration we are facing everyday in the field! Anyway, the boy is lucky because the electricity broke down was not that long. The lady with ruptured uterus is awake and still stable with normal urine coming out. The twins and their mother are all doing fine!