On the maternity ward

Today was day one of experiencing medicine here. The ward round started at around 8.30 and just finished at 1! This is not usually the norm though because Elisabeth has been in Britain for the last month so didn't know the majority of the patients. It was strange to compare some of the nursing practice to the U.K.. Some patients had intravenous lines that had been in for 5 or 6 days- in the U.K. they must come out after 3. Also they don't have many of the blood tests that we rely upon. They can't measure electrolytes here and in most wards at home people would have them checked daily! This is particularly difficult because they still prescribe drugs that damage the kidneys with no way of measuring toxicity. We were also amazed (Elisabeth too) that so many of the new mums had not been taught how to breast feed even though the babies were days old. Supervised feeding for everyone! Once the ward round was done with all the tubes removed Neil and I began the mammoth task of doing post natal baby checks on all the children in the ward. 16 babies later and we are finally done. Neil spotted a heart murmur that Shubhro came to check we think is a fairly common newborn heart problem. At the end of the day I can introduce myself and ask whether baby is peeing, pooing and feeding in Bengali. The student nurses were great and helped us a lot. I am exhausted but it has been great to be of use! J x