The new Health Officer (like a nurse practitioner) isn’t so bad after all.
The smart new nurse settled down and agreed to take overnight call.
We had a sit-down talk with the not-so-smart new nurse about expectations.
As for the so-far-from-smart-that-she-wouldn’t-recognize-smart-if-it-fell-on-her new nurse… we haven’t quite figured out what to do with her yet.
But three out of four new employees are settled in. Suddenly there are a plethora of nurses around the clinic; we don’t have to turn patients away at the gate anymore, and Edwin and I don’t have to be the “backup on-call” every night and weekend. I fully recognize that we are at the mercy of the local government though – they dump unemployable nurses on us that we can’t fire, and they can yank our good nurses for other assignments at any time, and then load on a hundred more reports for good measure. But this afternoon there was a small space of relief, like an unexpected cool cloud passing over the hot sun, where it seemed like maybe things were finally on track at the clinic. The staff finished up with patients early. Some played an impromptu game of volleyball under towering grey clouds that seemed about to rain. Others sat on the wooden benches outside the exam rooms and gossiped. Two nurses argued about how to run the malnutrition program and one nurse finished stitching on the sliced tip of a man’s finger. The families of the hospital patients milled around the empty clinic grounds. I sat down and felt the hard edges of this experience soften a little. Who knows. Maybe this adventure will turn out okay after all.
The smart new nurse settled down and agreed to take overnight call.
We had a sit-down talk with the not-so-smart new nurse about expectations.
As for the so-far-from-smart-that-she-wouldn’t-recognize-smart-if-it-fell-on-her new nurse… we haven’t quite figured out what to do with her yet.
But three out of four new employees are settled in. Suddenly there are a plethora of nurses around the clinic; we don’t have to turn patients away at the gate anymore, and Edwin and I don’t have to be the “backup on-call” every night and weekend. I fully recognize that we are at the mercy of the local government though – they dump unemployable nurses on us that we can’t fire, and they can yank our good nurses for other assignments at any time, and then load on a hundred more reports for good measure. But this afternoon there was a small space of relief, like an unexpected cool cloud passing over the hot sun, where it seemed like maybe things were finally on track at the clinic. The staff finished up with patients early. Some played an impromptu game of volleyball under towering grey clouds that seemed about to rain. Others sat on the wooden benches outside the exam rooms and gossiped. Two nurses argued about how to run the malnutrition program and one nurse finished stitching on the sliced tip of a man’s finger. The families of the hospital patients milled around the empty clinic grounds. I sat down and felt the hard edges of this experience soften a little. Who knows. Maybe this adventure will turn out okay after all.
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