As I was preparing to write this article, I had to think quite a bit about what to write. Things have been getting pretty slow in the CTC so there hasn't been a lot happening. We currently only have two patients, one is a 75 year old lady and the other is a 30 year old man who was admitted today. I will talk a little bit about them later. So as I thought about what to write, I couldn't remember anybody giving a description about what actually goes on throughout an entire day and the daily chores that need to be done. I will start with the shift beginning at 8 am and ending at 4 pm. When we arrive at 8 we can usually expect to have at least one patient that is ready to be discharged. We will give the person/s several packets of ORS drink mix with the instructions to put 1 packet in each one of their 1 liter bottles of water that they drink. We also give them a little jar of chlorine to mix with the water that they wash their clothes with as well as a paper that informs them about cholera and how to prevent it.
        Once we have given the discharged patients their instructions we will go into the rooms and have each patient go outside to sit for awhile. This helps to prevent getting pneumonia because they are not able to just lay around while they are getting so many fluids. Once we have gotten them out of their bed, we will change their gown and spray them down if they have soiled themselves. While they are sitting outside we will go through the whole room and clean it out. We start by sweeping it, then mopping, and then we spray down the walls with a certain cholorox solution. After that we will spray and wipe the beds off, change the bed pads and give them new sheets. We try to leave the patients out as long as they want and then help them with their IV bags if they have one and bring them back in. After the rooms are clean and the patients are taken care of, we are normally kept busy with numerous other tasks. These include soaking all material in bleach water for 10 minutes, filling people's ORS jugs, dumping buckets, dosing meds, paper work, and other little cleaning jobs. We also have a lady that comes 6 days a week and does all of the laundry for the entire CTC. This helps us to stay on top of the other responsibilities that can keep us quite busy.
        If a sick person comes to the gate anytime throughout the day, we will give him a 1 liter jug of ORS as well as medication and put him/her into the observation tent where we will monitor their input /output. If they have a lot diarrhea or vomit we will take them to a tent where we take their clothes off, spray them off, put a gown on them and then admit them into the CTC. From there we will continue to monitor their input/output and possibly give them an IV depending on their condition.
       When the crew comes on duty for the 4 pm to 12 am shift, they only have a couple of chores that need to be done. First of all, one of the things that need done is the laundry needs to be brought down from the roof and folded up to be used over again. Around this time is when I also take the buckets of waste out to the dumping hole with Michael Rudolph. When we come back we usually wash all of the waste buckets to keep them clean inside and outside. Also every Tuesday and Friday we spray down the porches in front of our own houses just as an extra precaution.
        The shift working from 12 am to 8 am can be quite boring at times. There have been several times where I have worked that shift and we didn't have many patients and nobody new came in so it made for a really long and boring night. We have several things to do on this shift. One of the things is that we have to refill everybody's hand washing jug. They each have a gallon sized jug with treated water that they use to wash their hands. After this we need to sweep and mop the nurse's room and the porch. We spray down the outside porch and also the area where the patients sit and walk around during the day. We also have to wash everybody's bucket that they use throughout the day.
        The patients that we have now seem to be getting better. The old lady is sitting up a lot more and seems more energetic which is a really good sign. Last night I worked from 12 to 8 and we had quite the time with her. She has been known to take her IV apart so needless to say she can be a handful! She told us she didn't want a diaper on but then she messed herself so we decided to giver her one. After receiving the diaper and shortly thereafter filling it, she decided that she didn't need it on so she took it off herself and threw it off to the side. We had to change her three times and the one time it was so bad that we had to change her bed so we could clean the diarrhea off of it. The man seems to be doing alright. I don't know much about him because I haven't worked with him yet but I wouldn't be surprised if he is discharged soon because he seems to be doing a lot better.
       I also just wanted to thank you all again for all of your prayers! Please remember to pray for healing for the Haitians

Jared Stump