Trying to catch up!

It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to update my blog…many apologizes. Life here on the Ranch is typically pretty busy during the months of January and February, with the changing of volunteer groups, getting settled in, and all that jazz. I’ve been keeping busy in the clinics, trying to define my role, responsibilities, and goals for this year. Nora, the coordinator of the clinics, has decided to continue working here, which is a relief for the clinic staff. Therefore, I have taken on the position of co-coordinator of the clinics, and have picked up some of Nora’s responsibilities, to divide up the work load a little bit.

Just to give a run-down of our clinics, for those of you who aren’t familiar. We have an internal clinic, which provides health care for the children of NPH as well as to the volunteers. Our external clinic is located at the entrance of the Ranch, and provides health care to poor people from surrounding villages. People from all over take advantage of the relatively inexpensive health care we are able to provide at this clinic. Just last week we had a patient that traveled for two days by bus to get here for a consult with our doctor. Other people walk for hours. A consult at this clinic costs around $1.50, and medications for a month cost about $0.50.

Our clinic staff right now consists of four Honduran nurses, two volunteer nurses (a German nurse that arrived in January, and myself), a pre-med student volunteer from the States, two volunteer German doctors, and four año familiares (young adults that grew up on the Ranch, and are now doing their year of service in repayment to the Ranch for supporting them through high school). There is somebody in the internal clinic 24 hours a day. The staff doctor and a volunteer doctor do consults in the afternoon for a couple hours on weekdays. Our external clinic is open every morning on weekdays. Typically we see about twenty patients there daily, but recently we’ve been seeing up to about 50 patients in just four hours. The numbers always seem to rise a little bit once word gets out that there are foreign doctors working there.

Outside of just providing consults for the children, there are several projects we are constantly working on. One of our major responsibilities is taking care of our twenty HIV positive children. My major project last year was developing a system that would help us control the medications for these children. They all currently receive anti-retroviral medications, which is a major undertaking for our clinics, and the tios (the adults responsible for the children in the homes). There was a recent turnover in the majority of the clinic staff, and throughout all of the shuffling, the system I developed last year has fallen through the cracks. This year I will continue to work with these children to keep track of their health care needs.

We are also currently trying to develop a system to provide ongoing monitoring of our children for certain health problems. A major health care concern here is intestinal parasites. There has never been a strict system on testing and treating the children for this, so we are trying to get that under control.

We also just recently started an educational exchange program within the clinic staff. Every couple weeks the health care team gets together, and we discuss a certain health-related topic, or teach a particular skill. Examples of these are how to apply injections, how to do stitches (this comes in handy with all of the cuts we see, caused by machetes), basic first aid, mock emergency situations, etc. I have dreams of teaching basic CPR this year to the interested adults that care for the kids in the homes, and in the school.

My typical work schedule in the clinic is 7am – 5pm. Each volunteer here is assigned to a specific “hogar”, or home where children live according to age and developmental level. Last year my hogar was Casa Suyapa, which is the home for the youngest children here (through 8-9 year olds). I have decided to stay with this hogar again this year. The volunteers go to their hogar every night for a couple hours, to eat dinner with the children, to help them with homework, and get them ready for bed. After working in the clinic the entire day, I am usually pretty drained, but it’s so great to be able to spend some time with the kids at the end of it all. Seeing them every day reminds me of why I’m here.

This year I will also be more involved with “Interconsulta”, which is when we bring children into the public hospital in Tegucigalpa, generally two times weekly, for appointments with specialists as needed. On these days, we leave the Ranch at 5am to make it to the hospital by 6:30. These days are generally long, and stressful. You’ll read more about the hospitals in Teguc in a later entry. Another project I will take on this year is trying to develop a system which will help Interconsulta run a little more smoothly, and that will help us to control the treatment of these children a little more closely.

You get the idea. Lots of work, and only another year to do it =)