Jessica vs GlobalNet, match 4
We are going on week 4 of being internet-less, not only at Casa Calico, but at the hospital as well. I have decided to take matters into my own hands... After unplugging everything for the millionth time, I called to harass GlobalNet again on Thursday. They have heard a lot from me, but Thursday took the cake. I completely read them the riot act over the phone—considering I’ve called at least 5 times, and they’ve now sent people out twice but with nothing to show. Supposedly the parts” for the “radio” are still on their way…the same parts that were supposed to come in two weeks ago. (I’ve begun to think that this is their standard explanation when they don’t want to spend the time to actually figure out what is wrong.) Well, it was a great accomplishment for me to be able to express my discontent on the phone, all in Spanish. It was a crowning achievement in fact. Needless to say, the guy from GlobalNet came on Friday, 7:30am (thanks to my mom for teaching me how to bust out the “I’m-not-taking-any-more-of-your-shit” in such an effective manner). Well, 45 min later he starts talking about “parts” that are supposed to come on “Monday” for the “radio.” At this point I sic Charles on him, and Charles made him swear on his LIFE that he was gonna come fix it today (Monday). This must be an island thing—because the guy didn’t show today. Perhaps because GlobalNet has NO competition they can afford to run their business this way. I called them around 10 to ask what was up…and they guy on the phone said the “parts” were coming in “this afternoon.” Ha. Anyway, this has now become a personal saga—and the internet WILL be back (probably the day before I leave, but oh well).
Other than the internet, things have been going very well in the clinic. I’ve been able to do more surveys than before, although it’s hard when trying to manage the patient flow for three doctors. Also, on Thursday and Friday I was doing some translating for Dr. Reena, because she doesn’t speak much Spanish at all. So it’s been very busy—but I prefer it that way. We
still haven’t seen many patients needing follow up care, just a astounding number of kids with a common cold or upper respiratory infection. Also, lots of skin infections, asthma and parasites. Because there are so many docs here (Dr. Leonel, Dr. Courtney, Dr. Reena and Dr. Rodney), they have been rotating between our clinic, a clinic in French Harbor and Peggy’s
clinic. Also, today Leonel just supervised the residents while they all saw patients, and that seemed to go well (Reena was also at Peggy’s).
Also, it’s become a regular “Real World: Global Healing” around here. It may have been slightly quiet when it was just me and Leonel…but now it’s practically out of control there’s so many people. Courtney and I have actually laughed ourselves to tears about the dynamics that are forming. Personality-wise, the five of us are just about as different as we could possibly be—and they might as well start filming us right now because I think this stuff would make for some seriously funny TV. It’s not that there have been any real drama or issues…but Courtney and I are hoping that something fun might turn up soon ☺. Especially since some UK pharmacist is about to join our island shortly. I would write more, but since these journals are posted and anything I write will probably come back to haunt me later, this is all I will say on this subject for now.
As for my personal project, things have been really coming along. I spent a ton of time this past week inputting diagnosis data onto a spreadsheet. Although it was fairly mind-numbingly boring, I think it will be very helpful. So far, I’ve put in info from Peggy’s clinic for about three weeks worth of September—including barrios, sex, age and diagnosis. I will also add September info from our clinic any day now, and hopefully result in a pretty good picture of the diagnoses for the month. ( I had originally wanted to include more Global Healing data, The database is set up with numbers representing each diagnosis, to make analysis easier. The database will help Dr. Raymond with his reports (which will eventually be used to get more money and support for the Bay Island Community Clinics), and also will be good starting info for the “health promoters” project that I’m helping with in La Colonia, in Sandy Bay.
As for the qualitative research I’m working on, I hope to FINALLY start the actual interviews this week. On Thursday I went to a meeting in La Colonia with community members, Peggy, Richard and two other American docs working on the project. The community members had been identified by the pastor as people who would be interested in being health promoters. The meeting seemed to go very well—the women (they all happened to be women) seemed to really like the idea, and were ready to get involved. I will hopefully be starting my interviews with them this coming Wednesday, and as they start to take some census info of their neighbors, I’ll go with them. I was supposed to do my first interview with Peggy’s housekeeper (one of the women at this meeting, and a strong female leader in the community) on Saturday, but I spent the entire weekend in bed having been infected with a serious cold by one of the kids in clinic. So I’m a little behind, but hopefully I will get a bunch done this week. I came up with the questions with Richard, and I’m very pleased with them. They focus on diarrhea, and through that topic get at some of the hygiene and food/water issues I’ve been interested in. The questions also include finding out when moms decide to take their kids to a doctor, and where they take them. So hopefully some really good stuff will come out of this.
Also on the subject of the La Colonia project—I see a lot more that can be done with it. My report is going to end up being fairly limited in scope, and while I think it will provide the health-promoter-trainers with good background cultural information, I think there is a lot more out their for future interns. Future interns could do more research—or perhaps even more valuable—help lead some of these training sessions themselves. I just think this is such a cool project that is just taking off now, and I’m sorry that I’m leaving before it really gets underway…I hope future interns will feel a similar excitement, and will want to support it as well.
