Today we did the early morning rounds at the hospital with the assistance of an intern. Dayana took us around the hospital after the rounds and explained each patient to us slowly and clearly. This was a huge success! Finally we understood the patient's diagnosis and management.
Interns in South America are still in their final year of medicine. They work shifts for little or no pay. If you attended a private school you pay the hospital to allow you to do your internship there. They are some of the hardest working people in the hospital system and they do it for free.
Dayana is from Peru and studied in Bolivia because it is so much cheaper. When she has finished her internship she hopes to go to spain to do her specialty. She is lovely and I would really like the opportunity to get to know her better. Of course the language barrier is difficult but I feel most comfortable practicing my spanish with her.
The house was hectic to say the least! There are approximately 20 children there from premature newborns to 3 year olds. Many of the children are multiples who's parents are unable to take care for them. Some of the children come from abusive families. One little girl is the daughter of siblings, her mother was raped by her brother. Another girl was blind because of an "accident" or infection that went untreated as a baby, she was also sexually abused by a family member. She is not even 3 years old. She was new to the house and was extremely malnourished. She is way behind in her developmental milestones and it only just learning to walk now, which is a difficult task even with the ability of sight.
The volunteers at the house are angels. There job is so demanding and stressful yet they do it with such joy. We were there for lunch time. Can you imagine feeding over 20 babies and toddlers at once? It was a marvelous mess! Many of the children develop quickly as they need to be able to function independently in this environment. Others who do not adapt so well or arrive when they are very young develop more slowly because they do not get stimulated as much as children living with parents. It was very sad to see some of the premmies left in rockers for hours just because they didnt have enough hands to hold them. We did our best to give kids the attention and love that they crave from adults. Many of the older children just long for your time and attention. We each took turns at holding the babies and hope that we made a bit of difference to the work load for the house volunteers.
When we arrived there were children on swings, children on tricycles, a set of triplets in 3 identical prams, 5 volunteers were nursing babies and more children rushed toward the entrance to greet us. It was overwhelming!We set up the clinic and had small child after small child handed to us. We examined ears, eyes, mouths, hands and feet. We listened to hearts and lungs, felt tummies, weighed and measured and changed nappies! It was unlike any other children's clinic I had ever done before. Children's health is based around a child's observed development by parents, their family history and birth history. It is so important to have the parent there to fill in all the history details that a child cannot tell you. However, these kids have no parents. We had to do a lot of guess work.
This is such an incredible place to visit. It was very challenging. To hear about such horrific stories and consider the consequences for these little ones. We are so privelidged to have been born in a country like Australia. We are so fortunate to have a government that supports children in these circumstances. It made me question...what am I going to do with this privelidge and fortune? What are you going to do?
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