Greetings to all.

This is the second part of Young Doctor Programme Series. You can read first part for the first posting at 3 Selatan Ward. Second posting was done at 1 Mutiara Ward which is an ICU – Intensive Care Unit. Have a read for the second part!

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On the afternoon, after all of the participants had taken their lunch at Dewan Rufaidah and prayed, we were ready to go for our next posting. That was our second posting on the first day. The group were shuffled and I was taken into new group consist of five students. My group members were Faris, Nadzir, Yusri and Amalina. We were given a task to go to 1 Mutiara Ward. Before we were brought to that ward, we keep asking ourselves what was that ward about. The Sister who conducted Young Doctor Programme brought us to 1 Mutiara Ward and left us there. It was 2.40 p.m. and at the front door, there was a sign written ‘ICU’ means ‘Intensive Care Unit’. We were quite shocked and surprised because we were placed in one of the important ward in the hospital.

We were asked by the staff nurse to wait in ‘Bilik Menunggu’ before we were went through the ward. This ward was very quiet and we only can hear the sound of the machines used to help the patients to live. At that time we were there, a new Chinese patient was just brought into the ward. The doctors working hard to save their patient live. If I not mistaken, there were four doctors working on that patient. The doctors installed a ventilator to help the patient to breath and plugged the Electrocardiogram (ECG) to observe the patient’s heart beat. The patients also given the blood as she had lost a lot of the liquid from her body.

Actually, all of the patients in this ward were installed with the ventilator and ECG to observe their condition. All of this stuff was linked to a computer, so it made the monitoring became easy. If this thing were unplugged, a siren will be heard. It was important as the life of patients were depending on it. The ventilator and ECG were operating using electric source power. If it is blackout, all of the nurse will be in great busy because they need to give manual ventilator to the patients. But, there was also electric generator to backup the electric energy source, so the patients will not be in great danger.

Then, we were given an opportunity to go around the ward. Maximum patients at a time is only ten. At that time, there were nine patients. There are two isolation rooms for those patients who have weak immune system. The patients placed there usually have blood cancer. Only a visitor allows seeing a patient a time. This rule is to avoid bacteria or disease spreading. Person who touches patients must wear gloves and still it is needed to wash hands with soap after that. It is because, the harm brought by the patients is invisible.

There were three babies patients. As we went round this ward, we were attracted to a baby patient, named Adik Mohd Haniff Hashim. He had been here since 30^th of June 2002 when he was six months old. Until today, he was four years old. Adik Haniff was diagnosed with spinal cord problem and abnormality of his stem cell. He also faced complication with his lungs that caused respiratory system failure. This patient breathed by ventilator. Because of this problem, Adik Haniff only can drink milk as his daily nutrition instead of solid food. This baby was given therapies to help him move and talk.

One incident had occurred to Adik Haniff when we were in this ward. His ventilator was unplugged accidentally. As Yusri saw this, he quickly called the nurses to help Adik Haniff to wear back his ventilator so he could breathe well. This situation had made all of us in shocked and panic for a while, but this memory will remained in our mind.

After two hours posting at 1 Mutiara Ward, we got a lot of information about this ward especially and also about the life at the hospital commonly. At 4.30 p.m., we all assembled at Dewan Rufaidah to check all of the students before we went to the buses to go back to our school. First day of our posting, which was first posting and second posting gave us new experiences and chances to meet all kind of people.

beliamuda: pictures here are only for decoration purpose…