Suzie’s 21st Birthday!
Today we are taking a trip to a few homes to do hospice visits and watch the nurses clean the wounds. They only do home visits to each house three times a week and not on the weekends. Some of these people do not get their wounds cleaned for 2-3 days.
The first house we stopped at was a woman living with her son and she had had a stroke. She was immobile and her son takes care of her when the nurses cannot come. We were not there for very long because the son had moved her and bathed her.
To get to the second house, we had to drive up a rocky terrain that resembled a road, narrow and full of puddles and deep potholes. The second house was a young man of 32 years who was HIV positive. He had bedsores on his buttocks and his knee. They were down to the bone. I did not go see because I did not want to faint. He was in a dark room that was pretty small again and the house looked like a garage, you would not think someone was living in here until you walked up to it. The garage portion of the house is rented out during nightlife as a shebeen, a makeshift bar. This man is sick in bed right next to people drinking the night away. It makes me wonder if the people drinking know there is someone lying sick only feet away from them? Do they realize the care he needs everyday and that his family is hosting a bar just to pay for the medication?
The nurses and the head nurse was trying to force us to go see his wounds, but I could tell from the smell I was not ready for it. The smell was sickening and I have not gotten the smell out of my nose since. We learned that if the nurses run out of antiseptic they would clean the wounds with saltwater, okay ouch. I cannot imagine the pain and then with saltwater on top of that, sounds just painfully brutal to go through every time they clean. We gave his mom 200 rands to help with what she needed most. While the nurses finished up, the head nurse Lydia went to the van and sat and waited for them. I found this intriguing. She seemed so keen to force us in there and show us how they cleaned and prepped the wound, but waited in the van. I was confused. I am so used to my mom, a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, to do as much as she can for each person. She makes them feel better any way she can. Hugs, medicine, a shoulder to lean on, unconditional support, and always updating her medical regulations.
Lydia also brought up a surprising point that I had not thought of yet, that they only know of a few people who have open wounds or who are sick enough to be taken to the hospital. But what about the people that are in their shacks and we do not know how sick they are or if they need immediate medical attention. Many, many more are out there, we do not know about, what do we do about the unreported cases of HIV? Or the days when the nurses do not come and his bed sheets are covered in blood and urine and his family is not around to help? One of my other classmates, Megan Gruver is in the University of Minnesota’s Nursing School and she explained to us what the nurses were doing and how it helped. Yet another thing I noticed was that at the clinic my mom works at they will explain to the family how to clean the injury or treat the illness of the patient. Here the mom was outside the room crying when she could be learning how to wrap his knee or wash it gently. Educating the family and others on how to prevent it and take car of would be beneficial to more than one person for sure.
Megan also told us if the family would move him every couple hours, it would keep his body awake and the blood flow strong. This visit brought up a lot of questions for me because my family has always been in the medical field and I have picked up on a few details of how the system should work. Or how I think it should work and every country is different. It made me glum that they did not have the access to great healthcare like we do in the states. Everyone deserves great healthcare no matter what the ailment. We are all human and should have the right to equal treatment and healthcare.
After lunch we went to a rehearsal facility to watch the Siyaya Musical Educational Group. It is a group that sings and puts on plays to raise awareness and tell the stories of HIV/Aids. They sing, dance, and have amazing voices. The director, Bongani Magatyana, told us his story and why he started the group. It was really inspiring after the morning we had. Close to the end, one of the women began to sing “Weekend Special,” which is a popular South African pop song from the 80’s. It was a good end to the day and I was in a generally good mood.
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