At Hospital El Progreso

We started working at the host hospital on Monday.  It is a very small hospital: two floors, maybe 50-60 beds, and only 3 main wards (Emergency, Matrnity, and Neonatal).  On the first day, we got there at around 7:30 with our host Marvin.  We were introduced to the head BME technician Juan Carlos, some more of the maintenance staff, and a few of the administrators.  Juan Carlos really helped us get our bearings, and took us on a brief tour of the hospital.  I had thought that my Spanish was at a level where I could understand at least a good portion of what people were saying, but I quickly realized how wrong I was about that.  When people speak with us, I can generally pick up the topic of the conversation, but often have no idea about what is being said.  I also don't think I have said more than a few dozen words over the past 3 days.  Luckily, Marcello is quite good at the language, and is doing nearly all of the talking and conversing.  I am kind of hoping that changes eventually, but I guess we will see.

The hospital is generally in good shape: it seems as though there are a lot of people who come through each day, see doctors, get treatment, and leave better off than when they got there.  The BME equipment maintenance and inventory, though, seem to leave something to be desired.  The maintenance staff focuses on the building and upkeep, and doesnt appear to spend a lot of time or energy on the machines.  On Monday, we had 6 nebulizers on the floor of our workroom, which had been brought there by the nursing/clinical staff for repair.  We were able to 'repair' all of them by early afternoon simply by cleaning them inside and out, and loosening up the rotor of the electric motor.  We also found some infant incubators in the bodega/'inventory', which were much nicer and newer than the ones that were in operation.  We expected to find some sort of major malfunction, but were very surprised to see that they worked.  Perfectly.  We are still trying to figure out why they were in the bodega, but are guessing they were not being used because the nurses were not used to the alarms and settings.  If this is the case, we will be having a short training session at some point in the next couple of days.  We have also opened up an anesthesia machine, and have identified a couple of major issues that we are going to look into.  I am hoping that we can get some of the tubing that it needs, and we will see if we can get it up and running.

The home stay is still very nice, and the food is as good as ever (even better than CR!).  The only hassle in addition to the oppressive temperature is the very random and very inconvenient inconsistent water supply.  On 2 of the 5 days we have been here, there has been a significant interruption of the water line to the house.  This is made even more unfortunate by the fact that the best way to cool off is to take a cold shower.  Since we can't cool off, we sweat even more and get even more filthy, and even more in need of a shower.  It is truly a vicious cycle :)  Luckily the water usually comes back after 4-6 hours, so there haven't been any hygiene crises yet.

There isn't much of a nightlife in EP to speak of, so most of our afternoons and all of our evenings have been spent at the host house.  I am looking forward to getting out this weekend and seeing some of the other EWH-ers on the north coast :)

Anyways, thats all I have for now.  Hope things are going well back home!

Hasta,
-Eric