Smartphones and Cholera--June 2011

Smartphones seem to be everywhere. Even in our Cholera Treatment Center in Haiti.

Tonight in the admitting area, things were going like usual--not real well.

I noticed a fairly well-dressed young man standing in the corner fanning himself.

This may have meant Number One: He was just hot because it is very hot in this area. Or it meant Number Two: He was really hot and hypotensive at the same time because of cholera and fluid loss.

Number Two proved to be correct.

Well we had the man sit down, and then he squatted down and he proceeded to vomit quite a lot of watery like emesis into the bucket and on the floor in front of him.

He seemed to stay squatted down on the floor for longer than the usual patient stays squatted down on the floor as they vomit. So I looked over two people who were plopped on chairs with their IVs running wide open and found the young man reading text on his lavender-colored smartphone.

So I kind of coaxed him up and flopped him on the table and examined him. He had no radial pulse that I could feel and he was cold and sweaty.

I popped in a line and infused him a liter of Ringer’s Lactate. And he continued to text and scroll as the night went along.

Smartphones seem to be everywhere--even to crashing cholera patients.

 

John A. Carroll, MD

www.haitianhearts.org