Via the Peoria Journal Star, Dr. John Carroll continues his remarkable reports: Cholera Treatment Center, Thursday Morning–June 30, 2011. Excerpt:
This little 15 year old boy presented to the Cholera Treatment Center this morning after a night at home of vomiting and diarrhea. He was slumped in his chair here in the admitting area.
We had just slipped an IV in his left arm and he proceeded to vomit many times all over everywhere. There was no bucket. He was in hypvolemic shock…but he should be ok because he is “plugged in” now and is 15 years old.
(I didn’t get my left leg out of the way quickly enough and ended up with “rice water vomit” all over my scrubs.)
A cholera patient can lose his entire body weight because of fluid loss in twenty four hours with this severe form of cholera.
We had 10 people like this young man crammed into the admission room yesterday which is about 20 feet by 20 feet. And there is only one door in and out and it is the only door that leads inside to the 50-60 patients in the building. Family members and staff carrying new boxes of Ringer’s Lactate use this door too. Sometimes the admission room is so crowded that turning around can be difficult.
And in his Thursday afternoon post, Dr. Carroll estimates his hospital has 250 to 300 cholera patients, twice as many as it had at the worst point of the initial outbreak.
