My first day at the hospital

I'm going to be shadowing and observing all the the different departments of the hospital for the first few weeks of my time at the Makeni Government Hospital. The men who work in the lab were great and showed me how they do some of their tests. Currently, the lab is located in an open air verandha (shown in the photo) because the real lab is under repair. They had a table set up where the patient visits for collection of blood, or they deposit other samples (sputum, urine, stool). At the other end of the table, they process the samples for basic tests, such as hemoglobin level, malaria, HIV. They have a microscope to observe for parasites and ova. It was all very basic, but it was interesting to see how they get the results. I'm not sure how accurate all these tests are.
I also observed the area where they do all of the patients' dressing changes. They do not use pain medication (partly due to lack of resources and partly due to cultural beliefs that the patient must deal with the pain). I became very nauseous and broke down in tears after watching a couple of children screaming and a man who was writhing in pain during their dressing changes. I expected this to be really tough, but I'm really going to find it challeging to deal with the conditions and practices here!!