Lauren, the nurse who recruited me to Medishare, and who has been here from almost the beginning, was banished today. Coldly and abruptly. Lauren was an excellent nurse and many of the “old timers” here are bummed.
About two weeks ago she gave an interview to a reporter about the makeshift morgue they had set up in the early days after the quake. She didn’t know she was being filmed, and it should not have mattered and did not matter to her. The reporter asked her where they were putting the bodies and she took him to some makeshift morgue. I’m sure the morgue was horrible, but it was utterly unavoidable at that point.
Medishare found out about it and told her to leave today. Rumor has it that the reporter, back in Miami, learned of her exile, got pissed off, and interrupted a huge Medishare fundraiser in Miami, supposedly yelling at the donors for eating fancy food when the doctors and nurses on site here aren’t fed properly.
I’m afraid I might get on The List because I am openly critical of the operation when I see things that should be improved.
A lot of nurses are pissed. We took up a collection for Lauren because she was booted out with very little money and Medishare would not even help coordinate a flight home for her. I have asked Jerry and Carla to look out for her. Lauren is trying to make her way to the Saint Damian’s field hospital in Tabarre to volunteer there. I just don’t do it on television in the project’s home town.
. . . . . .
We did get 21 fresh nurses in today, which is a great relief. It was a tough day for them to start.
We lost an 8 year old girl today. In front of her family. And in front of a bunch of other patients. She had just received wound care, which is excruciating under the best of circumstances, and had been given pain medication. Too much, as it turns out. Those responsible for watching her didn’t catch it in time and she coded. And died.
She wasn’t my patient, but we are all in close proximity and I know all the kids. And love them.
We sat in a circle today, about twenty kids and their families, while several of the transporter/translators held a prayer vigil and sang the most beautiful harmonized french version of the Lord's Prayer I've ever heard. I felt very privileged because the Haitians are very particular about who they let into the circle.
A lot of the new nurses looked at us very oddly because we were very separate from them, but they made no attempt to join either. They just stood in a corner and stared. It was like one of those scenes in a war movie where the new replacements have joined a battlefront unit just as it mourns a loss, and cannot find a way to fit in.
We are grateful for whatever time they can give, but the steady stream of replacements means that time and energy that should go to patient care is continually diverted to orientation, coordination, and team building, I just wish some of them could stay longer.
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