Hospital Sterilizing Room: After School Activity

  

The girls have been blessed to have made some amazing friends on the ship, and with those friends come perks.  (I mean, isn’t that one of the best benefits of friendships?). 

One particular friendship with perks is with our friend Jane.  We met Jane in January 2011 as she did Gateway training with us (joining us in everything from silly ice breaker games (top photo) to Basic Safety Training (2nd photo)).  She comes from Canada.  She has been working in the OR Sterilizing Room since we came onboard.  Jane and her team get all the instruments and gnarly equipment after a gory surgery and boil, steam, and sterilize so they are appropriately cleaned and ready for future use.  If you’ve ever watched a surgery, you’ll know how messy it can be.  Let’s face it:  surgery is bloody.  So this room is ultra-important to the health and well-being of our patients.

Jane with her team of guys: Juan from Dominican Republic, and Frank, Mark and George from Sierra Leone

The day of the Main Screening Day, Jane had been asked to stay onboard and get the equipment ready for surgeries that were due to open soon.  We also asked her to be “on-call” for our children. She gladly accepted this responsibility, and then later wondered if they might want to accompany her down to the sterilizing room for a new activity.  Certainly they would! 

Surgeries had not yet begun but some of the packages had been opened and needed to be re-sterilized, and some of the instruments needed to be re-sterlized after the sail.  The girls wouldn’t get to see the room at its worst, but still they could have a bit of the adventure.

So, Savannah and Kylie and their friend Jessica suited up in scrubs, or caps, shoe covers and readied themselves for entering this sterile environment. 

They spent their time putting litmus paper into sterlizing packs (as an indicator of expiration dates), putting eye tools into their sterile packs and sealing them, and (of course) listening to music.

 What a treat to have a great friend, the opportunity to see something new, and this amazing community around us!

Jane was a trooper putting up with our little rugrats all afternoon and evening.  By the time we finished at the screening site and returned to the ship it was nearly 9:00pm. 

She said about a million girls came over to the cabin for dinner too.  I think she must have exaggerated since there are only about 25 little girls on the ship, but I believe that there were 8-10 of them eating in our cabin!

Kylie had a long day - helping out with the other junior and senior highers at screening with water and food distribution, playing with the children, and serving as an escort among the stations.  She enjoyed being a part of the big screening day, but equally enjoyed feeling important in this special after-school job!  Thanks Jane!

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