Beth's Post: Haiti Trip Day 4

April 6, Tuesday:

You can fall off, but don't let the suitcases.

Today started bright and early. I was up and moving even before my 6:30 am alarm went off. After breakfast we all quickly got our stuff together and prepared to head up to Gramothe. First we had to haul a bunch of suitcases and boxes full of supplies out to the trucks and then we piled on top of them. If going up the mountain on an ATV was wild, on the back of an open truck was even more so. The places to hold on were few and far between and I got hit in the head with branches more than a couple times. I'm really impressed by the drivers.

When we arrived at the clinic there was a long line already waiting for us. Some of them might have been waiting over night even. It took us a little while to assess the state of the clinic, organize the bulk of the new supplies, and set up the work stations. The pharmacy and supply cabinet were chaos. The medical directer said it was once well organized, but the current state was anything but. Nancy, the pharmacist, and I were threatening to spend the night at the clinic rearranging the stores. At that point there wasn't too much we could do.

Supply closet. Good luck finding anything.

Soon the clinic was open and prescriptions were pouring in. Starting off I knew little about the drugs and nothing about the shorthand coming in on the prescription pads. I know way more now. Nancy was very patient with me and answered my many questions about what the various drugs were used for. This might seem mere curiosity, which did play a factor initially, but it was also highly relevant as we frequently needed to make substitutions for prescribed drugs we didn't have or to use up other ones that are older and need to be handed out first. Pretty quickly I learned the most commonly prescribed drugs and what they were to treat (high blood pressure, antibiotics, pain killers, etc). After only one day I can quickly count out the necessary strength and amount of medication with a pharmacist's knife, fill a pill bag, and translate the doctors instructions into Creole (qd prn=1 chak pa jou, pou doule= 1 a day, for pain). At the beginning of the day I had to ask Nancy about every item, but by the end I filled most of them only pausing to check with her on substitutions or quantity.

When it came time for the lunch break everyone else headed up to the school cafeteria, but Nancy and I still had prescriptions and patients waiting. We finished most of them before finally being chased up the hill to our lunch. After quickly consuming our sack lunches it was back down. By then Nancy felt a little more comfortable with where to find things and we took the few minutes before new scripts came in to reorganize our work space and make it more efficient. I definitely think the second part of the day went more smoothly as a result.

All in all it passed really quickly. I feel like I didn't get much hands on time with the people since we were pretty much frantically running around a small closet and handing things to the translator to pass out the window. That said, I really enjoyed the day. Once I figured out the basics and got to know my co-workers I felt pretty comfortable in my role. By the end of the week I might be heading to pharmacy school... Marcia said it was a pretty big turn out for the first day, so I'm interested to see what it will be like tomorrow. The patient count was around 200 people and there were more waiting when we closed down for the day.

Nancy trying to figure out what these meds are.