Diary: Sierra Leone slum medic

Adama Gondor, who runs a clinic in a coastal slum of Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, is keeping a diary for the BBC News website about her work.

Here she deals with a possible outbreak of diarrhoea and vomiting, a seasonal problem in Kroo Bay, where shanty houses have been built on a rubbish dump on the banks of the Crocodile River.

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The happy news is that this weekend our clinic cleaner Abdul's wife Mary gave birth to a little baby boy without problems.

The staff had been worried about Mary because she had very high blood pressure. She was advised to go to the hospital, but they didn't have the money.

The clinic cleaner's child was born with two fingers fused

Unfortunately the baby was born with his two middle fingers attached to each other and we can't do that kind of surgery here. Abdul can't afford the operation so we are not sure what will happen.

About two hours ago Kroo Bay resident Memunata brought her little two-and-a-half-year-old girl Christiana to the clinic.

Christiana had been playing and suddenly she started vomiting severely and got diarrhoea.

Immediately I got worried that we might have an outbreak of diarrhoea and vomiting, which often comes with the start of rainy season in April.

The big outbreaks of vomiting and diarrhoea start with the rainy season and every year claims the lives of more children in Kroo Bay Adama Gondor In pictures: Life in Kroo Bay

It's bacterial and highly contagious, so it spreads very fast in Kroo Bay where everyone lives so close to each other.

Menmunata rushed her daughter to the clinic. She was dehydrated and needed an IV fluid drip to rehydrate her, but we did not have one.

Fortunately Memunata had brought 10,000 leones ($3.40; £1.70), which is the price of the drip, and volunteer nurse Norah took the money and rushed to buy one. The big pharmacy is not close and she had to get the bus.

Meanwhile, we started giving Christiana oral rehydration salts, but she was vomiting everything she drank.

She was hardly conscious, her eyes were sunken and she only woke up to vomit every once in a while.

Highly contagious

Not long after another child from the same compound was brought in with similar complaints, she was also throwing up, but not as severely as Christiana.

I am extremely concerned if we have an outbreak now, because we do not have drug supplies here and many people would not be able to afford it.

Christiana had diarrhoea and severe vomiting

There is nothing we can do - the staff can't start paying for everyone.

The big outbreaks of vomiting and diarrhoea every year claims the lives of more children in Kroo Bay - especially children under five.

People will often wait till the symptoms get very bad to come to the clinic.

They try to treat it at home first, with lemon and water or coffee and only come to the clinic when it's severe.

If the outbreak is very big, the government sends in emergency supplies of IV fluids.

Within half an hour of starting the IV drip, Christiana was wide awake and chatting with her mother and the centre of attention of the many relatives who came to see her.

The IV fluid works very quickly and makes dramatic improvements in dehydrated babies.

We will keep her here for observation to see how it develops. Christiana also had a respiratory disease so we added penicillin to the IV fluid.

Read Adama Gonda's previous diary

Save the Children has launched an interactive website where Kroo Bay residents answer questions about their lives. Visitors will be able to access 360-degree images of the site, and catch up with the latest news from the slum through regular "webisodes".