The Reality of AIDS

Friday was our first day working in the hospital. It was weird to put on our scrubs again, we both feel like we don’t remember how to be nurses. We decided to go to the Female medical/surgical ward to try out our skills. Now normally in Canada the wards are split into medical and surgical each with their own specialties, but here due to lack of funding, staffing etc.. all the patients are on one ward. The ward we were on today had 40 patients…with only two nurses. The patients are so sick, I have no clue how the nurses are even coping. Another thing we noticed was how it is all young people that are dying. Those that are dying are between the ages of 20-40, no wonder the life expectancy of a Zambian is only 38 years.

We came onto the ward and began to shadow the two nurses on for that day. Our first duty was…dusting. Yes our Ghana Sisters, we were dusting again. Only this time people were dying all around us and we just kept spreading that dirt around. We were both at a loss as to what we were supposed to be doing. At home I would have been right at that person’s bedside, calling the doctor, giving medications..doing something! But we had to keep in mind that this was our first day, and we are here to learn from the nurses and support them. Part of the problem for nurses here is that they just don’t have the tools, supplies or resources to nurse their patients.
We attended rounds with the doctors, reviewing each patient. Here’s the shocking truth, 90% of the people are HIV positive. 90%! And they were all admitted due to secondary complications associated with AIDS. AIDS has completely changed the face of health care here. To be a nurse or doctor here in Zambia, you have to become a specialist in dealing with AIDS. Here is a list of conditions we saw today, most of which we have never seen at home:

Kaposi’s Sarcoma (secondary to AIDS)
Congestive Heart Failure (secondary to AIDS)
Cervical Cancer (secondary to AIDS)
Encephalitis (secondary to AIDS)
Herpes Zoster (secondary to AIDS)
Tuberculosis (secondary to AIDS)
Pneumocystis Carinii (secondary to AIDS)
Gastroenteritis (secondary to AIDS)
Snake Bites
2nd and 3rd degree burns

A heartbreaking thing for both of us is when the Zambian nurses ask how we treat our HIV positive patients. It is so hard to say that we barely ever see it in Canada. In our six years of nursing, collectively we have only had 2 patients with HIV. Then they ask us why we don’t have HIV. We don’t even know how to respond.

At home the majority of our patients come to the hospital; they get better and go home. Here people come to the hospital and they die. The whole hospital is basically palliative care, but they don’t even have the means to provide proper palliative care. It is a very disheartening experience for both of us, but it just makes us that much more thankful for what we have at home. Even though this is extremely hard, we know these are invaluable experiences that are shaping us into stronger and more well-rounded individuals.