I have a really complex camera that I still do not know how to use so many of the pictures came out blurry or too dark. The real documentary stuff is done by pros that come down here, like Brenden Walsh aka "90210", who left last week and is dearly missed but who shot some really great stuff with the people down here and will be posting the video to be shown at the Global Health Initiative fundraiser in Chicago sometime in the coming months. While I'm learning to use this infernal camera please have patience with the quality of the images.
The night before we left for Palacios we decided to rotisserie chicken hearts marinated in port wine and soy sauce. They were delicious and accompanied by heartbreakingly bad puns.
The clinic attended over 60 people on Saturday, not including the number the dentist ended up seeing. They come by any means necessary, micro bus, packed hatch-backs with four people in the front seat, or motorcycle, typically with at least three people--though sometimes a small child or two seated on the gas tank.
They also come on horseback.
This Saturday was the second training session for the new wave of community health leaders, the majority of whom are women, with our senior nurse Maria Cespedes instructing the proper method of taking a blood pressure. There are no CVSs around the corner here so these community leaders will be the ones responsible for hypertension management in each of their own small villages.
Although we do utilize electronic medical records for many patient charts, a written registry of patients and which communities they come from is still the Bolivian gold standard in "real-time" analysis.
This is Rudy, the dentist. He is extremely nice and has a sick motorcycle that he rallies up to the clinic on each Saturday. He also is very thorough and creative. Once when attending patients at the government health post in La Arboleda because the road to the clinic was impassable he was seen pulling teeth out of a kid's mouth on a porch while some stray dogs lapped up the blood. Let's just say he brings the romance back to dentistry.
It's called lunche (okay, it's actually called almuerzo) and it's where we discuss whether agua con gas is more or less liable to explode after thawing and the likelihood ratio that the amazing pork we ate last Sunday will give us neurocysticercosis.
This is Mumi, who almost always is smiling or cracking jokes. Here she is preparing empanadas for patients and probably laughing about how I screamed like a little girl when I went fishing with her son Alek and thought a fish was biting my butt cheek. The notorious muerde-nalgas fish (g-translate that if you don´t speak Spanish).
Though changes in diet can vastly improve outcomes for patients with hypertension and diabetes, Marcelo, Mumi's son, merrily tends the skin frying in oil so it comes out with lush golden brown hues.
Sometimes you have to pick your battles.
The front desk at the clinic, with 15 year old volunteer Georgina at the helm. Burak and Andrew discuss a case.
Interpretation of the day's lab results with the patient.
Micaela gets smiley and sentimental and perhaps a little teary-eyed as she looks over her last patient's chart on her last clinic day at Centro Medico HP before returning to work in Haiti's Port Au Prince.
The clinic empties out for the day as patients board the micro for Yapacani. Many of the patients from the clinic speak Qechua as their first language and come from places whose names translate to "Viper field" and this is their only real access to medical care.
Alek and I being flojo before going out with the net to fish. By the way, fish head soup makes a very nutrition and complete breakfast.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario