My patients are not numbers

I started my day this morning treating a middle-aged woman who was injured by shrapnel in the upper part of her chest on both sides, causing internal bleeding in her lungs. After further examination, it became clear that she had also suffered brain damage. She is now in intensive care, completely unconscious, and suffering from permanent brain injury.

A man came in with severe chest pain. A cardiac enzyme test was urgently needed, but he couldn’t afford it. He said he’d rather just go home.

We received many cases of gastroenteritis caused by spoiled food, along with so many patients suffering from low blood sugar and severe dehydration.

I just finished treating several people injured after a tent near the hospital was targeted. Among them was a 12-year-old girl with a shrapnel wound that pierced her neck and penetrated her trachea. As I was performing an ultrasound on her chest and abdomen, she asked me if her condition was stable. She was with her brother, who had also been hit by shrapnel. He was crying. When I asked why, he said their mother had been killed.

Another child, just two years old, was wounded in the head and neck by shrapnel. We couldn’t even send her for a CT scan to assess the extent of the damage. She kept waking up every few minutes in tears, then goes back to sleep again.

Both intensive care rooms in the emergency department were full the entire time. all beds at the emergency room were full. We had no choice but to examine new cases on the floor. Two patients with severe diabetes ketoacidosis, and a child with an intestinal obstruction, had to stand for a long time while receiving treatment; until they were finally too exhausted and sat down on the ground.

Just moments ago, a woman arrived who had been forced to stop taking her medication because it was unavailable. She had a severe accumulation of fluid in her lungs, and her oxygen saturation was at 58%. We couldn’t find a place to treat her. I had to move the two little girls; one with a pierced windpipe, the other with a brain injury, off the oxygen and onto a staff chair, just so I could put this woman in their bed and begin her treatment.

And still, more and more and more painful stories keep coming...

My patients are not numbers!