Monday -Working at the TB Hospital

Since I'm coming up on my last week of volunteering here, I thought I'd show more of the Brooklyn Chest TB Hospital. There are three group rooms in pediatrics- one for infants, one for toddlers, and one for 4-8 year olds. Older kids have their own rooms that they share between 2-4 roommates.

Here are the toddlers in cribs:

When we first get there at about 3:20 it's usually dinner time, so we help the younger kids eat (a very messy process, especially since they insist on sitting in our laps). The older kids are self-sufficient, but still love getting some attention, evidenced by below mouthful of food:

Once we get all the bowls away, the greatest demand is usually for carrying. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but the Brooklyn Hospital is a referral hospital, which means most families aren't from the area. The kids don't usually get to see their parents very often (only birth mothers are even allowed scheduled visits) unless their moms also have TB and are staying in an attached adult ward. This means they rarely get held or even taken out of cribs, so they are always elated to see us and run us ragged. Not to brag, but my carrying and piggy back rides are particularly in demand since I run in spuratic patterns and periodically spin around very fast (though this is immediately after they eat, this hasn't resulted in disaster. yet).

See how much fun I can be?:

Some of the children are actually very mellow and just want you to peacefully hold them for a while. Granted, most of them start out this way and then gradually accelerate to climbing. I think they receive medications not long before we come, and the more recent arrivals haven't adjusted well to side effects yet.

Here is a tickling fest:

After a few hours of play, we help get them all changed into PJ's with fresh nappies and put them to bed (4:30-5;30 for the whole process). This is a bit hectic because a lot of them have really awful diaper rashes and such since the nurses have to care for so many. It's really difficult to leave because they all scream and scream when you shut the door.