I’ve had another enjoyable week in Peggy’s Clinic and doing odd jobs in the afternoons. In clinic, I’ve still been mostly helping out in the pharmacy and doing some interpreting for a doctor who doesn’t speak Spanish. I’m still learning more and more every day, and the work has been really rewarding so far.
One young woman I interpreted for was about 5 months pregnant and wanted to get a pregnancy check-up. When the doctor asked her where she was planning on having the baby and if she was going to breast-feed, she explained that she was on the island without any family and was working full-time, so would go to La Ceiba to have the child, breast-feed for a couple weeks, and then leave the baby with family indefinitely and come back to the island to work. It made me really realize how hard it can be for women here to raise children, especially when they are not near family members.
Another woman came in presenting symptoms that seemed like she probably had kidney stones, but the only way to really tell was to send her to get an ultrasound in La Ceiba, an expensive ferry ride from the island. I’ve come to realize how limiting it is to try to provide high-quality health care on an island that has very limited resources when it comes to testing, etc. Often we can get the people over to the mainland for free or a discounted rate, but they still need to sometimes spend the night there, get transportation to and from medical centers there, etc.
I went in to the Global Healing clinic on Wednesday because Peggy’s is closed, and they are still on strike. Dr. Charles also hadn’t come in, which was stressful for the new attending, as she really wanted to have someone there who knew the system and population better, which is completely understandable. Hopefully the next couple of months will go smoothly.
Max and I have also been taking care of odd jobs for Miss Peggy, including making a poster for a conference they went to in Copan Ruinas, grading diagnostic tests to get ready for the tutoring program, and dealing with special cases. I went to La Colonia on Friday to find a girl with a club foot, as Dr. Raymond wanted her to come into Miss Peggy’s clinic so he could refer her to the surgeon in the public hospital. I found the mom with the help of Irma’s daughter, and she seemed rather disillusioned, since apparently the last time they tried to get the girl to a medical brigade on the mainland, it all fell through and she didn’t really know why. I was happy when she still came in to the clinic on Monday, though, as she’d promised. Hopefully it all works out this time.
Other than that, I’ve been enjoying island life, although we had a big rainstorm all weekend. We did make it out to the east end of the island, which is beautiful and so much different from the more touristy west side.
