As the title states it’s been busy… We’ve had so much happen over the past few days! The week started off slow with a regular start but soon started to get interesting! Many of these things were good but several of them were very sad.
I’m going to start with the sad and finish with the good stuff. First off, whenever a snakebite case comes in to the ER most of the hospital knows it, especially for me working in the pharmacy because we handle all the antivenom. This Wednesday, a family brought in an 11 year old boy whom had been bitten by a cobra. Cobras are the most poisonous snakes here in India and I believe the world, if I’m not mistaken. So this case was especially dangerous, not only because it was a cobra but also the size of the boy. The prescription came in immediately to the pharmacy and we quickly got all the drugs needed for this boy. It had only been a few minutes since we sent out the meds that we heard screaming and crying echoing through the hallways of the hospital. The hospital is rather big and the pharmacy and Out Patient Department were on the other side of the hospital but the crying could be heard clearly. It turns out the family had waited too long to bring this boy in and he had died upon arriving to the ER. It certainly put a solemn haze to the rest of the day. So far we have had many snakebite cases since Zach and I arrived but this was the first death from one.
Sometimes families in the small outlying villages try and take snakebite victims to magicians or shamans but of course that doesn’t work. It turns out the boy had been bitten 2 hours prior to arriving at the ER and he simply had gone too long without treatment. I think the saddest part of this whole thing is that he could have lived. We’ve asked the doctors here how often snakebite victims die and the answer we’ve always heard is almost never. Most of the people hear understand the importance of time when rushing to the hospital for treatment but not every does. This was one of those cases.
The very next day before we were doing rounds with the doctors and were still in the ER/ICU checking on the patients there when another family brought in a 4 or 5-year-old girl who had been hit by a bus. She was unconscious and had a large gash in the side of her head. They began patching her up immediately but were worried about the head trauma so she was sent off to Vijayawada for CT and MRI scans. The facilities here at the hospital are fairly rudimentary. We only have an X-ray machine and I’m pretty sure its from the early 90’s and so if we need any other kind of tests done that involve some kind of imaging, the hospital is forced to refer patients to Vijayawada.
Anyway, that those were the two traumatic cases that came in this week. Things like that are common but not for us so it was a little bit crazy from our point of view this week.
Thursday brought on a whole new type of excitement though!
So very, very sad when anyone dies simply because there was a delay in seeking proper medical treatment, but especially so when it's a child.
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