April 4, 2010: Week 3
So I arrive at the clinic early on Monday morning, ready to get to work, and I am surprised not to see any patients waiting in the hallway. There are only patients waiting by the emergency room. I was a little earlier than usual, but it still seemed strange that there was not anyone. Still, I opened up the clinic and got ready for the day as usual. Ten minutes went by and still no patients. I go down to where the patient check-in area and I see it is locked up. I had no idea why. I had still had some work to do in the clinic as the painting had been done on Friday, and I still had to make sure everything was dusted off and wiped down. Soon Dr. Sara arrived, and let me know what happened. Apparently there was a tiny sign on half of a manila folder, near the entrance of the hospital that I had missed. It said ‘No habra consulta externa del 29 de Marzo a el 4 de Abril’ meaning no consults all this week. We had not been given any prior notice of this, so Dr. Sara went to investigate. She found the director of the hospital, who was in the Statistics Department, angry because the Statistics Department decided, on their own; to put up the sign and send all of the patients home early in the morning before anyone else arrived. They took it upon themselves to let everyone have the week off for Semana Santa, even though the Director had previously decided that patients would be seen until Wednesday. Needless to say, we were not thrilled about this development either, as not only had we planned to be there, but our patients were sent home unseen. Dr. Sara then explained to me that this is not the first time something like this has happened at the hospital, which is really horrible, because just because it is a holiday does not mean people do not get sick. And what options do people have, either get sick enough that the emergency will take them, or come back next week! Dr. Sara also explained to me that for chronically ill patients it is especially bad, because if they had an appointment to come in this week, it just gets lost and they do not get rescheduled. They have to come back next week at which point they are wither turned away because they do not have an appointment or forced to wait to see IF they can be seen that day or they have to come back and try again, which throws off their entire treatment schedule as well as their personal schedule. It is really sad that the hospital workers feel that they can just do something like this.
So I had to make the best of a bad situation, since Dr. Sara and I were already there, we went through the clinic and did some housekeeping. I had organized almost everything my first week there but there are always little things that can be done, and it was helpful to go through everything together so that we would both know where everything is and exactly what we have. We also tried to see if we could drag the guy who is supposed to install the automatic door closure device to finally do it, but it seems he decided to take the week off too. For the rest of the week I went to Clinica Esperanza and worked with the doctors there. I got to see some really interesting cases. One young man came in with a large growth on his cheek, probably a little smaller than a ping pong ball. It was small fluid filled sack, and I got to help one of the doctors as he opened it up and removed all the fluid. Well help is probably too strong a word, I got to get him his supplies and hand him tools as he needed. But it was amazing! It is not too often that I get to see something like that live and up close.
The rest of the week, the days we were actually supposed to have off, one of the new doctors at Clinica Esperanza and I went to West End to get our diving certification, which is also one of the most incredible things I have done. Diving is amazing! Getting to float around almost weightless in a completely different world, is relaxing and so exhilarating all at the same time. And I cannot express how unbelievably amazing it is to be able to do something like swim alongside a sea turtle, so close that you could just reach out and touch him, or floating alongside a giant coral reef wall when you are forty feet underwater and see that it still extends at least another fifty or sixty feet below you. That last one gave me a little nervous giggle at first, because it is like standing at the edge of a cliff, but this is like a dream because you can actually go over the cliff and “fly” alongside it. If you ever have the chance do go diving, I definitely recommend it. And the dive shop we went to gave us a good deal because we were volunteers.
So, although the hospital tried to stop me, I was still able to accomplish some good thanks to Miss Peggy and Clinica Esperanza, and I finally got to find out why there are so many divers on this little island, all in all not a bad week. Alright, well I think that is enough from me, Happy Easter to everyone, until next week!
