Ponderings: Letter from Zambia

The day of Sunday 4th December, 1966

Arrived on duty at 8am. One other Nursing sister and me are here today - along with nursing assistants on each ward.
8.05 Sent the ambulance to airport for a woman with snakebite (She was working at the airport). Meanwhile a woman in labour arrived. Also a man with cellulitis needs to be admitted.
Snakebitten lady arrives - she will have to lie on the floor (no spare beds)

8.30 Collect list of patients from each ward and work out how much food is required for the day.
254 patients, each to have 10 ounces mealie meal, 4 ounces beans, 2 ounces peanuts, half ounce sugar, one and half ounces dried fish, half pint milk (dried).

doing the maths in notebook 1966

from my notebook 1966 !

Go to kitchen and supervise the weighing of the food.

9.00 Help other Sister to make extra milk drinks (made from powdered milk) for special sick patients. Distribute milk, and check on patients.

Me pausing at Hospital laundry. Irons are heated on the embers.

Another two snakebites arrived - very inflamed legs. Woman with severe infection of abdomen arrived, and a 2 month old child with convulsions.

10.00 Should be coffee time, but the woman in labour had her baby. Quick cup of coffee at 10.40, broken off by admission of a woman in a rigor (probably malaria), and a 1 year old child who swallowed a fish. Another child arrived on his mothers' back (as they all are) with scabies. She had carried him 40 miles, slept in the bush last night. One of the patients with snakebite then had an epileptic fit, and three more minor cases arrived on Female Ward.
By now there are more than 20 female patients on the floor.

Female Ward actually has 36 beds, so has become very overcrowded. There is at least one relative with each patient helping them with eating and toileting, and giving them water. Women with babies have the baby in bed with them if they are not too desperately ill, as they need to breast feed. Patients and relatives all have tied cloths full of luggage with them, and all are invaded by flies.!

On Isolation ward another 2 children are extremely ill with measles (they'll probably die). There are 12 more with measles and 4 with whooping cough. 46 with TB and 14 leprosy patients.