Our first week of clinic was quite the ride. The amount of sweat we shed was evidenced by the liters upon liters of water we had to drink to avoid heat related injuries. It's hot.
It's fair to say Dr. Marks and I were quite grumpy (Sorry Nicole!) at the beginning but we've adapted. We're getting closer to the equator and it will only get hotter. We're doing it the Solomon way – just sweat it out!
The clinic has been seeing 700 people a day through the combined services (optometry, medicine, dental) and we've been busy averaging 300+ prescriptions a day. We got smart very quick and had the Australian guys pre-pack all kinds of medicine to give to doctors to dispense to alleviate the burden on us. Even so, we average 200 people a day we still have to counsel in Pigin English. If you see Dr. Marks around school just ask her to show off her Pigin skills; she has learned a new language!
The islanders have shown up in full force and line up at 3am for our 9am clinics! Just about every other person has some sort of fungal infection and I've seen several cases of tinea corpus. Malaria is a problem here but we are referring those patients to the host nation for care. We're also quite lucky to be able to work with two pharmacists from the host nation. It is incredible how they've managed to deliver high quality healthcare with the extremely limited funds. They work 12 hour days and are on call during the weekends and JohnMac(enroe) travels across the Bay to get to the hospital.
The Solomon people are very friendly and intelligent. They live off the land and farm for themselves. The islands as a whole are very poor and they crowd our clinics because the healthcare is free and they may not have the funds to afford it otherwise. Besides betelnut, I've noticed another odd behavior of the Solomon people. They litter indiscriminately. As soon as they are finished with something it's either thrown on the ground or in the water. From afar, the beaches are beautiful, but as soon as you get close you'll notice trash is just below the water. Tomorrow we retrograde (pack-up) and head to the hospital in Honiera.
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