My mobile phone rings in the hours of darkness, and I hear a voice saying that there is an emergency… and it involves a child. Please come quickly.
There is something about emergencies with children that tug very strongly on my heart strings…
Tonight, after I dashed to the clinic, soaking wet out of the shower in whatever clothes were closest to the door, I discovered it was the sweetest and most beautiful little girl of around two and a half. She had been playing with her mother’s kitchen knives.
She looked at me with some apprehension, but did not cry or try to get away as I approached her. Lots of children are convinced I will stick a sharp needle in them, as that’s their usual experience of going to the clinic!
It turned out that she had grabbed the sharp end of a knife in the crease between her thumb and hand, and sliced it open. It’s the sort of thing that when I see people in films grabbing on to the sharp end of swords to desperately defend themselves, I can’t help but cringe… Thankfully, this little girl does not have a very strong grip yet, and the cut was only a few millimetres deep, though quite long.
I blew up a latex examination glove and tied it into a balloon, so she could play with that while I cleaned up all the sugar her parents had poured over the cut to stop the bleeding. This is when it became clear that in emergencies involving children, the child is not the only patient, but the parents need attention too! I gradually calmed them down, explained her thumb was definitely not going to fall off, and that I did not even need to put in stitches if we could cleverly bandage her thumb to her hand so the wound would close itself. I stopped short of offering them any glove balloons though!
Earlier today, another parent -the first resident European I have met here in Shela- almost passed out when I needed to do a very small surgical intervention on her 13-year-old daughter’s toe. It was actually quite funny. The teenager was completely calm, as I explained what I needed to do to drain some pus (yes, I am at it again!) out from a puncture wound on her toe, and her Swiss mother was holding her hand trying to help her through the procedure, but the mother was so scared of needles and medical interventions that she nearly passed out! So she had to go lie down while I finished sorting out her nonchalant daughter, and we had a bit of a laugh together about her mum.
Oh, parents, parents… Many lessons to learn from the brave, trusting and strong children you have put into this world!
Here is a spontaneous song by the Shela Primary School children outside the Dispensary gate:
