A week ago, we took a one of the children from one of the villages to get a blood transfusion. You may think this would be a fairly simple procedure, yet everything here in the DR is more complicated.
First, you have to find a person with the same blood type. Holly’s friend Bonnie was visiting, and just happened to have B+ blood, so she graciously volunteered to donate. The doctor’s office told us to go to a certain clinica (aka private hospital) to donate the blood as it was cheaper there than at other places. First, she had to give a few tubes to check blood levels and type, and once she was ok’ed to give, they brought her back into the room and laid her down. The nurse brought in a bag with a tube on it that had a monster needle, and then just proceeded to drain blood down that tube into a bag. After giving up 450 mL of blood (and paying to give that blood), we left.
Monday came, and with it came a trip to the hospital for the transfusion! Only, we were going to a different clinica for the transfusion, one that was just a few blocks away where the doctor worked. You may ask, how did we get the blood there? Answer: Walk into the lab, request the blood, and they just hand you a bag of blood. The same bag, unprocessed or anything, with the tube knotted and the needle cut off. Then you just walk it to the other hospital!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
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After 3 nurses, 4 hours and 6 attempts at starting an IV, the transfusion was finally started. With a tired, cranky three year old, we spent the next few hours while he was getting the blood trying to get him to sleep and not pull out the IV that took so long to put in.
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And at the end of the day, what made everything better? How will we be able to take him to the doctor next time? ICE CREAM!
Moral of the story: If you are in need of a blood transfusion, try not to do it in the Dominican Republic. And certainly don’t do anything that would require an urgent transfusion.
