I was called in to help out in the Department of Speech & Hearing (DSH) of Sunway Medical Centre. I was appointed as a technician, coming as a locum to do Automated Auditory Brainstem Response to newborn babies.
SunMed is one of the major hospitals that has started the Newborn Hearing Screening Program (NHS). All mothers are advised to agree to have their newborns screened. Those who don't agree will be consulted until they agree. Of course some still don't.
FYI, NHS is really important in early detection of hearing loss, especially for high risk babies, where the high risk being jaundice, prematurity, low birth weight, low APGAR score, asphyxia, meconium aspiration and so on. With early detection there will be early intervention which will bring to great prognosis for the child.
Anyway, the DSH were short of staff and was estimating a big volume of deliveries on the very 'ong' date: 080808. I was supposed to come on Friday, 080808 and Saturday 090808. After much thought and messages between the powers-that-be, I didn't go for the Friday stint. Instead, I just came on Saturday.
There were 17 babies (if my memory serves me correctly) delivered the day before. Most of them Chinese of course. My supervisor-turned-colleague told me at SJMC, there were 15 babies.
How crazy was that?
Since it was my first day at work, I was pretty slow. And the babies were so uncooperative and being difficult. (To pass the screening, babies need to be quiet if not asleep to get nice waves and good results). I think I only managed to do only 5 babies during that 4-hours+ stint. But boy, was I exhausted. I nearly fainted due to long hours of standing! And I had no breakfast!
The next next Friday and Saturday, I asked the DSH people if I could come again. They welcomed me with open arms. I guess they really need the extra pairs of hands, regardless of my poor performance on my first day. I vowed to give my best.
I kept on coming on every Fridays and Saturdays onwards up to September. As the days go by I managed to do things pretty fast. However, there were days when the nursery was pretty packed, and the nurses there were all grumpy and they blamed me for being slow. Hello?! Do you think screening is easy? It's not okay! A lot of factors need to be considered.
Some days there were only a few babies, and I had to do data entry on the number of babies screened for the past few months. It was boring but I'm being paid, so whatever.
My First Paycheck :)
I only did two months as I was not progressing with my thesis and my studies, which should be my priorities in the first place. Besides, they hired an assistant, so it won't be the end of the world once I stop coming.
5 comments:
Wah. Teruja aku baca. Aku tak pernah tau pasal program macam NHS ni.
Eh, tak apa ke letak gambar baby tu kat sini? Hihi.. comelnye baby tu..
erm, asalkan takde nama tak pe kot kan? muka babies lebih kurang je pn, takde sape akan cam hihi.
i knew u'd appreciate this kind of content, haha.
btw boleh stat screening lepas 8 jam dilahirkan.
bestnya hahahha ! i bukan grumpy nurse kannnn ?;p yay !
oh, cte ni psl 2 bln lps.. cuak gak kt mase bc.. awk kn xsehat bole plak g hospital pgg baby sume tu.. hehe..
mesti hepi je keje tgk baby.. xtension kn..
tension bila nurse2 kat nursery tension.
tension bila baby tanak tido.
heh.
kalau dtg time tgh chicken pox, konfem tak dipanggil semula inda, huhu.
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