Drama in Gabon

One thing that has been interesting in my first week is how communal the hospital experience is for patients. (Sorry that I did not write for two days family, I just felt fluish and under the weather and slept a lot, apparently this is a common reaction to arriving in Gabon. It's a full on immune system attack so it takes a bit of time to adjust.) Patients are kept three to a room and everybody knows exactly what is going on with all the different babies in the room, they help each other out, they answer each other's questions from the doctor. There is little concern about health care privacy. Even clinic visits are done two to a room. There was a particularly dramatic example of this communal health care on Thursday when a 14 year old girl who had arrived 3 days earlier from a small village with a premature baby that she had just given birth to that was all floppy and weak asked to leave the hospital. She told us that her father had called from the village and wanted them to come home. The main pediatrician refused saying that the baby is too weak, which he is. He barely breast feeds and only takes 2ccs of breast milk every few hours through a naso-gastric tube. The girl insists. Then the nurse gets the father's phone number and calls. He has not asked for any such thing as the girl returning to her village. Clearly she wanted to get out and this was her ruse. Interestingly, the nurse (and nurses do a lot of public health type stuff her with what they say to patients) announces to everyone in the room what the girl wanted to do. All the moms start in on her about how she has to care for her baby, does she want a dead baby, what will she do when she shows up at the village with a dead baby. The other nurses start nagging her about staying. It was as if the small pseudo-village in the pediatrie waiting room rose up to issue collective advice and pressure. I had never seen anything like it in the US. And what did the young mom do? Of course, after all that, she stayed.