Medical improvement at Casa Maria

The penultimate visit to Casa Maria was, in some ways encouraging. It was nice to see that many of the patients had been doing much better – it meant that I had less patients to see compared to the previous weeks too.

However, some of the patients who were unwell had issues which I found difficult to resolve. Some patients had sores which were unlikely to be pressure sores as they had them in the anterior aspect of their thighs – not a site which would be usually associated with pressure sores. However, the sores were clean and did not appear infected which was a good sign. I had requested a dermatologist to come to see some of the patients – including a patient I suspected had a basal cell carcinoma but this did not happen.

The patient with the suspected dermatobia had had his dressing changed. The nurses said that they saw something moving and they tried to pick it out but instead ended up taking out small bits. This frustrated me as the possibility of the dermatobia coming out now was very low. In the end, I suggested to continue with antibiotics and to review it again on Friday.

Many other patients who I saw had very menial problems which didn’t really need any medical attention (e.g. some minor arm pain having injured it when moving around). I took this as a positive – it meant that there weren’t many other people who were actually sick!

There was a new volunteer at Casa Maria who was going to be there for a  few weeks. His main focus was to have activities for the residents, which would hopefully reduce the amount of time they spent sitting doing nothing and reduce the amount of depression.

In the afternoon I spent some time with Jorge sorting out some more donations to Maximo Nivel which were going to be given to the local hospital. There was a lot of stuff – but I don’t know how much would actually be useful. Someone from the hospital then came to check whether they thought it would be used or not and took it all to the hospital.

In the evening after the tandem, I had dinner and spent some time with the family who were there too.