Today's typically, atypical day in Haiti involved going down to the clinic to offer a prayer and a little health talk to the paitents while the nurses took vital signs. Before giving my talk, I usually scan the crowd to see if there are any obviously critical or on the verge of critical patients. Today, there were a couple patients that I tried to advise, but they weren't critically ill.

Nurse's Day! Front row are Miss Carmel and Miss Annie!
When I see patients  Miss Annie and Miss Carmel help me write in french. 

On Nurse's Day, I had to take a pic of nurses with me in front of  Hospital St. Francois de Sales.

The nurses and I in front of the little room where vitals are taken.  I'm next to Miss Carmel!

I then went to talk to the head nurse, Miss Carmel. She engages me in conversation and teaches me Kreyol. Miss Carmel donned white on nurses day and gave out red ribbons for AIDS awareness the following week. We talked about the possibility of writing French book publishers to find out if they would donate books to the nurses and doctors here. I can't even find a drug book here in french for the nurses to look up med doses! We set up the one suction machine that works in the Chanm Accouchmant (directly translated: room delivery). Shortly after doing this, we were using it on a 6 month old boy who was grunting and flaring his nostrils. He was breathing rapidly and needed assistance clearing his airway prior to transport to a source of oxygen. We went to Cap-Haitian's main hospital, Justinian, and I sent my trusty interpreter in to see if oxygen was available. They have a few oxygen concentrators and one tank, sometimes they're all in use and there's no room in the inn; today was one of those days. The siren allowed us to pass through congested roads, past motorcyles, tap-taps and buses on the road to Milot, but not without some patience. Even the siren doesn't always clear the road for transport of a sick patient. I was so pleased when we arrived and put our patient on 5L NC. 

In Milot, I was able to go see Dieuly, the little baby I wrote about in my last post. He was tucked into his incubator with supplies and formula sitting on top. The nurses said the father visited last week. I left pleased to know both babies I've transported to Milot were being cared for! This took up the whole morning.