Sunday 16 May 2010

Life and death.

An unbroken night's sleep and I'm much less grumpy.
I've had some sad news from yesterday- a lady whose labour I was augmenting delivered a flat baby and despite all resuscitation efforts, the doctor on yesterday was unable to revive it. Labour is a dangerous time anywhere in the world but the risks here are definitly greater as we don't have the facilities to monitor as closely as we would like to, nor to act as quickly as we should.
On a happier note, when I went to Paeds ward, I found that all 3 of the babies who were dicing with death yesterday are improving.
Sadly the one who had the enema, whilst less acidotic and more likely to survive, seems to have some neurological deficits. We will have to wait to see how things progress, but it may well be that some permanent brain damage has been done.
When I consider that the child had made it safely through the dangerous delivery period only to be potentially disabled by well-meaning relatives, I am again frustrated at how hard it is to change a community's beliefs.

No comments:

Post a Comment