Saved by Their One-Night Baby by Louisa George

Author:Louisa George
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2019-04-10T13:12:01+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

LIFE BACK ON the ship was so busy Claire almost didn’t have time to think about Ethan and the kiss they’d shared. And...everything. At least, she tried not to think about it because she was even more confused now. But with sixty-four new refugees on board, her medical skills were being well used and her free thinking time was mercifully limited.

It had been four days since those wonderful few hours of freedom but now the medical room had become her new home. Today she was working on a patient who, like many of the others, was suffering from the effects of poor nutrition, dehydration and exposure to who knew what bugs on a tiny boat with people from almost as many different countries as the number of passengers.

Claire gave the details to Kristina, who’d just finished a stint with a woman suffering from horrendous chemical burns. They really did have to be ready to deal with whatever was thrown at them, or at least get the patient basically stabilised until they could dock somewhere.

‘This is Fuaad, aged forty-two, from Somalia. His temperature’s thirty-nine point seven. He’s got rigors, low blood pressure and a thready pulse. There’s obviously some sort of infection going on but nothing obvious.’ Claire looked at the emaciated man, who was shivering despite the warm spring day, and touched his hand to give him some comfort. ‘He just says he aches all over, but reports no pain in any specific area.’

‘Could be anything. Make sure we maintain strict infection control protocol.’ Kristina did a quick examination of Fuaad with the help of a translator. ‘He’s badly dehydrated but his chest is clear. Grab some normal saline, will you? We’ll set up a drip, give some antipyretics and see if that brings the temp down. We’ll have to start him on some broad-spectrum antibiotics too, until we can get a positive result from a swab or urine sample. If only we had a blood culture machine.’

‘Dream on, Doctor.’ Claire smiled at Kristina as she slid an IV canula into a vein in the man’s arm.

It was so different from working in a hospital where you had everything to hand. Here, often the only option was to reach some sort of working differential diagnosis and hope.

They worked on him for a while, checking and double-checking his temperature and response to the fever-lowering drugs. Claire noted his observations. ‘He’s a little more comfortable now, although we still need to know where that infection is.’

‘It’s like a game of pin the tail on the donkey, but we don’t even know where the donkey is. We’ll just have to keep an eye on him until we get to port.’ Shaking her head, Kristina washed her hands and dried them. ‘I need to go and see the baby that’s not keeping anything down, so can you apply a dressing to Geesi’s foot laceration? He’s waiting outside. Then there’s the blood-sugar check on Ahmed, he’s all over the place at the moment. This last group have all been quite sick.

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