Loving Africa

I realized that, for usually spending five mornings out of the week at the dispensary and having gone to Gabon as a nurse in the first place, I have said very little about the dispensary. So, we shall remedy that with this post.  My journal expresses a good deal of frustration over not being able to really "do" much of anything in the dispensary. Part of that was the language deficit, part of it was the fact that there was indeed not much for more than three people to do (I made a fourth person). My productivity increased over time, however, and the experience was invaluable.  There were four chairs in the waiting area where some of patients would sit. The rest would sit outside on benches against the wall. There were no appointments; each patient carried a notebook of some sort, which was his medical record. Every time a patient went to the hospital or a clinic, the doctor he saw would write the diagnosis and whatever treatment was prescribed. The patient kept the book, maki