ARTICLE - CHOLERA - DIE EASY - TREAT EASY

"YOU CAN TREAT IT EASILY, BUT YOU CAN DIE EASILY TOO"
(Peoria Journal Star) - By Dr. John Carroll

“You can treat it easily, but you can die easily.”

This quote is from a nurse here at the CTC in the village of Pestel.

The CTC nurse reviewed the CTC books and I reviewed the dossiers here at the CTC in the Pestel Hospital yesterday.

There were 39 cases of cholera in December, 2011 with one death recorded. Most of the cases of cholera in December came from Desvereaux about 90 minutes by car south of here in the mountains.

The river in Desvereaux is the Riviere La Clotte. People bathe, wash clothes and drink from this river. Cadavers wash into La Clotte and sheets that have been wrapped around cadavers who have died from cholera are washed in La Clotte.

La Clotte does NOT dump into Pestel. I saw no documented cholera cases in the dossiers I reviewed originating from here in the village of Pestel. Dr. Phillipe told me this morning that they do not have cholera here in the Pestel village because the people are more educated than the mountain people in Desvereaux and practice better hygiene here in Pestel. They also have no private home toilets or public toilets to serve the markets in the villages in the mountains south of Pestel.

There are two little boys who are brothers here in the CTC. One is six-years-old and the other is three-years-old. They drink water from La Clotte that the mother insists she treats with Aquatabs and Cholorox. Their father is in the CTC too, sick with cholera. They have been here for about five days. They all seem weak, but will survive.

From January 1 until today (January 16, 2012) there have been 46 CTC admissions with no deaths recorded. There are four people in the CTC tent this morning.

The CTC tent can accept 18 patients, but last year when the tents were full, there were forty patients here in Pestel.

I counted about 500 liters of LR available for the CTC. One of the CTC nurses told me that during May, 2011 they treated a 28 year old woman who had severe cholera. She received 66 liters of Ringer’s Lactate in 48 hours and survived. (I asked the nurse if she said “thank you” when she left and the nurse smiled and said the patient thanked them many times over.)

I asked this nurse if she was seeing patients who returned with a new case of cholera after surviving their first episode. She replied that there were many cholera “repeats” but was unable to give time intervals between cases.

There were Cuban doctors and nurses here from November, 2010 until April, 2011 and did good work according to the CTC nurse here in Pestel.

Human waste from the CTC here is dumped about 20 yards from the back of the tent into a “cement well” which is filled with garbage. Garbage from the inside of the hospital is thrown over the wall that surrounds the hospital.

The Pestel Hospital has about seven inpatient beds. This hospital serves an area of about 80,000 people.