The Medical Team . . .

Monday was unbelievable. The medical team saw over 750 patients! In addition to the Catalyst staff of 3 doctors, 6 nurses and 1 medical student & non-medical volunteers, we also had 25 Vietnamese doctors volunteering. Some people waited 6 or more hours to see a doctor in the 90+ degree heat with a lot of humidity. The doctors and nurses were mobbed and overwhelmed and there was just complete chaos. For many of the patients, their only medical care is when we are in the area so they are persistant. The medical team is set up at a building about 1 block from the Catalyst Foundation School. It's an odd building which isn't ideal for this, but it is better than everybody being under the intense sun. Despite putting barriers around the work area, the children and adults alike will try to sneak in. Many of the children playfully try to enter and it becomes a game.
The patients start by having their height and weight checked and evaluated by a growth chart. Then they went to vision and hearing testing which I helped to conduct. Fortunately we didn't find too many boys and girls with poor eyesight, but there were some that had possible hearing losses. Then they had their blood pressure and pulse taken before sitting down with a nurse to talk briefly about their health history and potential issues. They are then referred to a doctor if needed for further evaluation. The children also went to a dental area where some extractions were done as well as fluoride treatments. Finally, they had vaccinations, and if necessary blood drawn for lab work. Their last stop was the pharmacy for vitimins, at the least, and medication. All of the medication was donated and either brought by the Catalyst volunteers or the Vietnamese doctors. There is quite a bit less medication this year than there was in the past and it's possible we may run out before Thursday.
Vision and hearing tests were interesting since we usually didn't have a translator with us. If the children knew numbers it wasn't too bad, but if not we had to try to get the to point which way the symbol on the chart pointed, and they couldn't understand English. Many were too young to communicate with so we really couldn't test vision. Once or twice though, we did have children that not only knew the Vietnamese numbers, but they also recited them in English! It felt really good since those kids are part of the Catalyst Foundation's school! One little girl was very afraid of us and not cooperative (we are big and dressed in scrubs and very, very sweaty!), but when she was finished she was blowing us kisses! At the end of the day there were still people in line and after they waited for hours, we had to ask them to come back on Tuesday.
Tuesday was a lot less crazy since we only was 255 patients, but we were without the Vietnamese doctors. I took myself off vision/screening and worked on crowd control to keep out the people trying to sneak in and to move the patients from one station to the next and try to keep them in line. Again, they were sneaky and tried to move ahead in line or were sitting on stools and they didn't know which end was the front. One man spoke very good English and told me that the lady he was with was his aunt (his mother's sister) and he said that they were always glad when we visited and thanked me several times. Later I heard a nurse tell the same story so he was making sure that everybody knew how grateful his family was for our help.

Fortunately Wednesday we don't have to leave for breakfast until 6:30 am! I just downloaded Brianna's pictures, but I don't know what they are and she has already been asleep for about an hour. After dinner we walked with a lot of our friends to a place down the road that had drinks and ice cream! I knew she was tired when she finished her ice cream and asked to go back to the hotel rather than for another bowl (well, actually it was served in a martini glass!).