Tracking Ed Monroe as he travels to Haiti and other exotic(?) places

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Tuesday evening

It is now almost 9PM on Tuesday. A quick note about the time, we are on Daylight Savings time this year and so we are on the same time as Illinois. Go figure that one out! So, soon it will be bedtime as 5 AM rolls around quickly.
We are just done with our team meeting and there are no major issues. Ha! No one counted patients today but I have told one and all that it had to be 250 or more based on the work. At one time, there were not 5, not 6 but SEVEN providers sending me patients. No wonder we could never get ahead. We did manage to finish by 5:30 PM and I am very proud of that fact. I am still searching for items and there are boxes stacked on boxes in the store room and the pharmacy so the search is interesting. I’ve managed to find what I’ve been looking for after a period of time on or subsequent searches for the same item. The alphabetical system in the store room has been compromised and that makes it most difficult. The out of place items seem to hide well where they do not belong. The system is very Haitian.
All of my helpers are the same as in the past. My pill packers are as slow as ever and cannot seem to grasp the concept of scooping pills into a measuring device and putting them into the bags. The preprinted labels allow us never to run short of packaged pills at any time and I recommend it highly.
The temperature was in the 80’s today and it was very humid. There was thunder and lightning on the nearby mountains but no rain. It was just muggy. The power went off several times today. It seems a hose on the generator broke. We have generator power from 6 AM till 2 PM and then EDH power from the pole the rest of the time. The only problem was that EDH went out twice in the hottest part of the afternoon which meant no lights on the cloudy day and no fans.
The providers had lots of questions and they are fun and easy to work with, Dr Nelson, the Haitian physician, even came out to help for quite awhile. A note to Mark Purcell- I know now just what you meant when you described working with him.
Lots of patients with scabies, lots of ear infections this time and I wonder why. The kids are not in school so we expected loads of them but just the normal amount so far.
One more note to my family: My jump drive will not open for some reason and the files that I need to transfer to the computer here are locked. Please read my email to you and respond when you can. Thanks.
I am sitting on the balcony where I wrote from this morning and there is a nice cool sea breeze. I am sleeping on the second floor on the other side of the building and there is no breeze in there and it is very warm. By the way, there are no mosquitoes so far. That is a far cry from our last February trip. I do not miss them at all. But I do miss home, a lot!
I think that is enough for tonight. I’m tired and even a warm muggy bed will fell good.
Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Thanks for the emails and comments.

1 comment:

Jody M said...

Hi Ed
It's always an adventure when you travel to Haiti! Glad to hear all eventually came together. We'll be praying for you and the team.
Take Care!
Jody and Chip