Day 5: Home visits and hospital in Punta Gorda...

Unfortunately, the internet has been rather sluggish and moody the past several days, so I have not been able to write each day about the specific events of that day. However, I now have a little bit of time to catch everyone up. Just a note...there is so much that I could tell you but I have to limit it to just a few highlights. Many more pictures will be posted on my facebook, so take a look at them in the next couple of weeks if you would like. :-)

Tuesday was our first day of home visits and the Punta Gorda (PG) hospital. Amanda and I were a team and had home visits first. It was very interesting going into people's homes and doing physical exams, checking vital signs and blood sugars, etc. I almost felt like we were intruding, but they were very welcoming and receptive to our presence. The living conditions varied from visit to visit. Some lived in run down wood house with dirt floors and ratty old smelly mattresses laying on the floor, and some had nicer stone houses with tile floors and running water. My last patient of the morning used to be a nurse in New York City and had many interesting stories to share with us. Their culture is so different; even their food is different, what they call "delicious" is for the majority of us rather disgusting. At least medicine remains pretty much the same in regards to the fact that bodies do the same thing all over the world. Here in Belize their two main health issues are hypertension (or elevated blood pressure) and diabetes (related to obesity, inactivity, and unhealthy diet).

After eating lunch back at the Abby House, we went to the PG Hospital. We were not given clear guidance as to what we should be doing at the hospital, but we found things to do. We headed up the pediatric ward and helped take vital signs (yay for mercury thermometers...not). Then we drew up normal saline and salumetrol and did nebulizer treatments on all 5 pediatric patients. That was neat because back in the United States we would never be able to actually draw up the meds and inject them into the mask...they come premade and in a hospital respiratory therapists do those treatments.

Here are a few pictures of the hospital....

The picture below (with the red cart) is their intensive care unit or ICU....a lot different from what we are used to.

The picture below is the surgical suite - an American team comes down once a year for a week and performs hundreds of surgeries. Otherwise, this room goes pretty much unused the rest of the year.
This last picture is of the emergency room. It was not very busy when we were there. Their resources are quite limited but they are still able to provide good care for some emergency situations.