UMass team's first day of work

Today was the UMass team's first day of work. The team split up, half of the group stayed here at PID's clinic in Blanchard, and the other half went out to a mobile clinic in Sarthe. Three students also tried out their hands at the construction site, sifting and shovelling for the education center and the new office. The rest of the students were paired up with the nurses as they saw patients. Everyone had a very busy day. The mobile clinic saw about 70 patients, and at PID we saw over 120 patients. We usually close at 3:00, but when we saw how many patients were left, we decided we weren't going to send anyone home, so everyone stayed and saw all the patients. We ended up finishing around 6:00.

 Dr. Jim spent a lot of time with a little girl with third degree burns over her whole body. She had fallen into a fire during a seizure. He patiently dressed the wounds, while feeling the frustration of knowing how much a skin graft would be the best for her but how unaccessible that is. There was another little boy who was brought in, seizing after he had fallen off a set of stairs. We rushed him to Petit Freres et Soeurs, but were dissapointed in the way they recieved us and the lack of services that they were able to provide to him.

Today we had a surprise visit from the MSPP. They are going to add our clinic to the list of health centers that are giving good services. They came to collect information and questioned all the staff and even Dr. Tamara. All of our staff responded very well to all of their questions and they were impressed by our services.