Baby Lonely

Hospital visiting hours here in the north is beehive.you get to see a patient who has a crowd paying him a visit with coolers containing meals,a mat to spread on the ground and you imagine if they were having a picnic.yet a bed opposite this celebrity patient is a patient who has just a visitor by his bed side and you almost think he is lonely.
   This brings me to my lonely patient,a beautiful male child in the special care baby unit,his mum went in to Labour, had his delivery and went into coma.
This baby was in this unit, he was naked for 2 days without a change of clothing.The father of this baby was MIA because he said he had no money to cater for the mother who was at that time in the intensive care unit.The hospital had to waiver the bills and social services were involved.
Baby lonely was a quiet baby never did he cry for attention he was.contented with his little cot,the cereals the social welfare .provided and the few pieces of clothing my second and I took turns in washing.when other babies were rocked to sleep and breast Fed by their mother's baby lonely was occasionally carried by us when less busy and Fed with a syringe.
A week later a a woman appeared and said she was baby lonely's aunt,she told us baby lonely was to leave us we were so glad baby lonely who wasn't sick in the first was finally getting a real home.Here comes the twist after much probing baby lonely aunt finally said she will take the baby home but she doesn't know where the baby will sleep.
We begged ,'please leave lonely with us we will take care him' trust she didn't argue.I wished I could adopt this baby,I wished he would not go with his immediate family for fear he would end up begging but who I'm I to know his future.All this while the mother was still unconscious and deteriorating.
   I left baby lonely in the special care baby unit caused I was drafted to man the emergency paediatric unit I was so busy I couldn't get to see lonely.
I went to see lonely he wasn't there to smile at me,a part of me was glad.I rushed to check on his mother I met her still unconscious and lonely wasn't there.I ran to the nurse's station without greeting first I asked ,where is lonely?I was told he has gone home.I wept within me my heart went out to him.I started wondering what would lonely eat breast milk from a wet nurse with the risks of HIV infection or corn flour without milk cause the father has 13 other children and can't afford to spend money on milk for one.baby lonely got a new name I never heard of or saw him again.

The right attitude

Wow...I finally want to blog about something.As a doctor you come across a whole lot of people with different character and personality and you have to deal with them all.you even work with different people too.
  I'm in surgery posting.Alot of my colleagues complained about general surgery they were of the opinion that the surgeons are bullies and wicked.Initially I signed in I got scared(work can be stressful) I immediately requested for my leave but when I got back I came with a different attitude this time around a positive attitude to work.The funniest part was I became popular in the department I'm now known as the doctor that ran away 'so funny'.
I told my self ,I'm me ,I'll respect my senior colleagues and do what I'm meant to do which is ,the best for my patient.The upside to my decision is that everyone wants to work with me.
I learnt that the way you present your self actually matters alot.Show some level of decorum try your best to learn as much as you can to improve on yourself and above all ensure you are fun to work with.I personally hate a hostile environment.I'm having fun in surgery in contrast to the info I got from my other colleagues.


Lest I forget why do Nigerians wait till a problem gets so bad before presenting at the hospital?
There are alot of women with ulcerative breast lesions and for some they are presenting for the first-time.
My question is,why wait this long?