I
was awoken at 6:30am this morning by the house shaking…there was an earthquake!
At first I thought that it must have been the strong winds from the storms but
later it was confirmed that it was an earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter
scale. There wasn’t any apparent damage in the house or outside and the shaking
stopped after a minute or so.
I
met Jorge at 7:45am at Maximo Nivel and we made our way to the bus station
where we took the bus to San Filipe – a small district just on the outskirts of
Antigua . We walked to Casa Maria – which is an
elderly care home. The care home initially started out as a private care home
but it was found that there were very few people that could afford the care at
the home and this was therefore changed to an NGO. However, the funding for
such an organisation was/is very poor and there is only a very limited number
of staff along with limited supplies.
With
this in mind, there is also no facility for doctors to see the patients in the
elderly care home – and so even when the nurses note a medical problem, the
residents of the care home rarely get to see a doctor.
I
had a chance to look around the home and set up a mini clinic for any of the
residents who the nurses felt needed to see a doctor (with Jorge as the
translator). It was a daunting experience for me as I was solely responsible
for the treatment of any medical conditions that they had. In addition, many of
the residents could not speak very well (or could not remember well) and often
there were important questions about their history which could not be answered.
One example was a patient who had a grossly enlarged testicular sac with an
incision in the lower aspect of the sac. He vaguely remembered that he noticed
his testicles were very enlarged but didn’t know much about why he had an
incision there or what had happened following the procedure.
Another
challenge was the availability of medication. An example was a patient who had
severe lower back pain – but there was no real analgesia available (she was
being given one tablet of diclofenac daily which did not relieve the pain much
at all).
Nonetheless,
I did the best I could and discussed with Jorge the possibility of getting some
of the medication for the residents for next time. The main issue for me is
that even if we get the appropriate medication, it is not clear if this sort of
help can be sustained – if the home is not adequately funded to provide the
medication, the same issue will arise soon after I leave.
By
midday, Jorge had to leave and so I returned with him. I managed to Skype with
my parents and then ate lunch and rested a bit before going to my Spanish
class.
The
other student in the class was planning on going to Volcano Acetninango for the
weekend and was looking for someone to go with (as the price would be lower if
we went together). Although the rain had been putting me off making trips like
that this week, I decided I’d go for it anyway (Ramadan is coming up at the end
of the month and so it probably makes sense to do the hiking trips before
then). Initially, the travel agency said it would cost $85 each, but I managed
to get them down to $70. The trip would be two days with travel, a tent,
sleeping bag, meals, guide and park fees included in the price.
I
went back home and had dinner and walked around town a bit before heading back
home to get ready for my trip to Volcano Acatinango the following day!
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