Max Journal 5

Last week was better than the previous, even though the strike persisted. On Monday we unpacked, inventoried, and repacked meds that arrived at Peggy's Clinic from the International Dispensary Association, which was exciting and fun. The drugs have been expected for the last half year, so they were a welcome addition to the pharmacy. Tuesday was back to the strike, but Charles showed up (briefly) and we were able to see patients for most of the week. On Friday the records department stopped handing out patient charts completely (even to the ED), which gave us a little scare, but we decided that if we didn't help out, the patients would just get seen by other doctors without their chart, so we kept functioning as an "urgent care clinic" extension of the ED delivering a lower standard of care than would be expected in the US. Peggy told us to start looking into soliciting drug donations from a number of international relief organizations, so that has kept us somewhat busy in the afternoons. We also spent an afternoon delivering drugs to a small clinic in Diamond Rock that Patrick Connell and the Clinica Esperanza folks helped start, which was an interesting excursion. Yesterday there was a fundraiser for Peggy's clinic in Coxen Hole, and we helped out (a little) and ate snacks (a lot) for much of the afternoon. I am optimistic about soliciting these drug donations and hope that something positive comes out of our work. Also, we spent Saturday morning crunching some demographic data collected by Krista Bruckner about La Colonia, which was interesting and different. Alright, this is a concise journal, but hopefully it's sufficient. And in a special sneak preview of next week: I'll let you know that the hospital strike ended over the weekend.