The Girl.

Something New

Doctor Fuentes took his students to San Pedro hospital again , they were to have a practical class about postmortem care ,inside the studio . Fuentes told them not to think of postmortem care as a full scrub-down or anything else ,they should know that they're cleaning up these bodies using a washcloth in order to make them look as presentable as possible ,should always do it from head to toe ,clean up any fluids , provide peri care and oral care , brush their hair , pack their dentures , glasses and jewelry if any then send it up to the mortuary with the bodies .

"The sooner you do this, the better it will be." Fuentes continued explaining how a postmortem care is done . "Trust me , don't ever wait to do a postmortem care , it's something that needs to be done as closely to the time of death as possible, and after the family sees their body in case the family is present ,then you will probably have to shroud the body and put in a body bag ,where the body will be taken to the refrigerator and from there the funeral people can take it ."

"Doctor , are we going to do our practicals only with this dead body ?" Santiago asked .

"Not at all , you're going to form groups of two and each group will be attending to a dead body for your practice ,"

Doctor Fuentes allocated every group of two to a patient who past away ,Fiona was the only one left among the five who didn't get a group. Fuentes promised to take her to someone who would help her throughout her postmortem care practices , he left the others in the autopsy room and took her to another autopsy room ,opened the room and showed her a woman's dead body on a stretcher.

"Fiona , this is Ms Belinda." He said . "She died two days a go , her relatives haven't shown up yet since she got into a car accident , for the past two days, no nurse has been taking care of her except a nun who has been volunteering during the afternoons ."

"Is she going to be my patient from now till her relatives show up ?"

"You got it right , but don't worry ,the nun will be helping you and I think by now she should be here ."

He had his eyes on the door way to see if the nun was coming , luckily enough the nun showed in her consecrated blue dress , a white belt and a veil with extra wide white trim .

"Hello doctor , sorry am late to attend to Ms Belinda , you know I had to give some gifts for some kids in other rooms and who is this lovely girl you're with ?" The nun with the biggest smile asked as she had her hand bag down on the table that was inside the room.

"Sister Lucracia , this is Fiona , a medical student of mine , Fiona that is sister Lucracia." Fuentes introduced the two to each other. " You know before her ,we had sister Beren who was also as generous as sister Lucracia , sister Lucracia ." He went closer to her . "Fiona will be helping you here with Ms Belinda till Ms Belinda is transferred or till her relatives show up ."

"How are you Fiona ?"

"I'm doing well sister Lucracia , it's a nice name you have right there ."

"Thank you and so is your name ,i just like your curly hair , if I weren't a nun .I would be exposing mine as well ." She giggled at sheepishly

"All right sister . I have to leave . I have a lot to do . I will be leaving you with Fiona .Fiona make sure you learn from sister Lucracia , this is beneficial in your studies as you know ." Fuentes left the room leaving sister Lucracia showing how it's done when carrying out a postmortem care .

Later in the class, all the students had to tell Fuentes what exactly they learnt when carrying out the postmortem, when it was Fiona's turn , she told him from what she had learnt from carrying out a postmortem care with Ms Belinda . Sister Lucracia told her that they had to attend to a patient despite their condition ,whether at the edge of death or not ,even if they had no chance of life , everyone had a right to medical care . Fuentes was impressed with her and asked her to continue seeing sister Lucracia and Ms Belinda .