The Hospital Store?

Next to the hospital in Mokhotlong, there is a canopied store. When we first drove by and I peered in, I saw shiny wood, and the other PAC doc with me thought there were guitar cases inside. We quickly realized that those wooden boxes were not meant to hold guitars, but were meant to hold people who didn’t make it out of the hospital. I have never before seen caskets sold in such proximity to a hospital, a place that I like to imagine heals more people than not.

I suppose this isn’t a crazy notion here. On the day we arrived in Mokhotlong, the hospital’s one blood chemistry machine (to get serum values of basic electrolytes and kidney function and liver function tests) and the CD4 machine (to help know when to start ART in an HIV+ patient, or to assess success of treatment) were both broken. The last time the CD4 machine broke, it wasn’t fixed for 4 months. Neither machine was working yet by the time that we had left, and I can’t imagine trying to take care of very sick patients without getting some idea of their serum electrolytes and organ function. There is a lot of limitation to not only treatment here, but also to diagnosis and management. I find it amazing that in a country who is doing amazing things for HIV treatment with ARV, no one in the region of Mohotklong currently can get a serum sodium level.