oh Mulago.

Yeah, I went back.

It is just really difficult to say "No, I won't come help you take a dying man to a clinic to get an x-ray" when the hospital doesn't have x-ray films and haven't provided x-rays to a man who obviously has a broken skull and has been in the hospital for a week. This is also the patient who was found on the floor with one arm handcuffed to the bed the other night. No one helped him, none of the other 30 or 40 people in the ward, oh or the nurses.

So we went. And we took Charles to a clinic outside of the hospital to get x-rays of his head, arms, and chest. Sounds simple, right?

Wrong. We couldn't find a wheelchair (in the hospital). We had to convince the guard to un-handcuff him from the bed. We had to put the broken, near-death man in to a private hire (aka taxi). I held him up in the taxi. Mind you, he has plenty of open wounds that have not been attended to. He also continuously smells of urine. It was a lovely trip. ( I wore gloves and had all my vaccines and will also be getting all of the proper health screenings/tests when I get home.)

We arrived to the clinic and tried to convince them to give us a good price because we were doing charity work. They quickly realized that Charlies was a suspect in an attempted murder case and laughed at us. After some convincing and a lovely performance of  mine that included "Who are you to judge this man? Is that not God's role?" (Be impressed), they lowered the price.  A lovely nurse cleaned his wounds on his head and arms that they said were septic.

We then decided that Charles needed a catheter. Guess who was nominated to go buy a catheter? Guess which pharmacy did not have a bag for the end of the catheter? Guess who watched a nurse insert a catheter in to Charles?

Turns out Charles has a broken hand and three skull fractures.

The trip back to Mulago was accented with me leaving Alexander's phone in a taxi, then chasing after the taxi, then tracking down the taxi, and eventually retrieving the phone.

Jonathan and I then cleaned Robert. I was quite proud of myself as I cleaned his wound and handled the awful smell quite well.

The night ended seven hours later with Edith, a nurse who attends to destitute patients at Mulago day in and day out, taking me around to many female patients. It was heartwrenching because everyone needed something and due to my nice clothes and whiteness they assumed that I could help. Therefore, once I spoke to one patient every patient wanted to speak to me. I heard multiple stories of cervical and breast cancer. About the removal of a woman's uterus. And how the radiotherapy machine in the hospital did not work. All I could do was to promise to call Hospice-Africa on their behalf.

We left feeling helpless and productive at the same time, yet the feeling of utter frustration almost caused me to break down. It just cannot be that hard to keep people clean. That is all I am asking at this point. Keep patients clean and perhaps comfortable.