El Carmen Maternity Hospital
We visited three wards: Maternity, Parto (Birthing) and Pediatrics.
Women in the Maternity ward were there for various reasons. The first area we went to was the post-birth area where 25 women who had babies 0-2 days ago went before being discharged. The youngest mom we met was 14 years old and the oldest was 42 years old. The doctors choose to discharge everyone quickly to decrease the baby's chance of getting sick while in this large shared hospital room. Sadly women who had both successful and unsuccessful (aka still-born or miscarriage) were all placed in the same room so some people were happy and others were very sad. The other area we went to had women who had pregnancy problems. Several women we made rounds to had miscarried their baby due to manual labor to help support their family.
The next ward we visited was Parto (or birthing) where women are literally having their babies. We weren't able to see anyone go into labor bc there were no caesarian sections or natural births occurring that morning. However, based on the equipment I saw, I would be slightly concerned to have a baby there. I also learned there are two ways to have a baby, horizontal (regular) or verticle (standing up). The native Peruvian women prefer verticle which apparently is less painful, but you have the added stress of who is gonna catch my baby?! No thanks!
Lastly we visited the Pediatric unit and saw children from age 3 months to 15 years old. One little boy Davíd (7 months old) was recovering from neumonia and was the cutest little nugget ever! His mom wore traditional clothing which makes me thing they're from outside the city. Another little boy (8 years old) was rough housing with friends at school and fell. He ruptured his intestine but his family couldn't afford a doctor so it went untreated. The rupture poisoned his body and he went into septic shock. Finally he came to the hospital but not after significant damage occurred to his brain stem and brain. His paralysis reminded me of some patients back at Shepherd and how far this boy could come with proper treatment.
Erin, Paula, Lauren and I with our med student who took us to each ward to meet the doctors. Hopefully next time we come here I'll be able to see a live birth!!
El Rosario Orphanage
In the late morning we went to an orphanage close to the host family called El Rosario. The kids here have either been abandoned or taken from abusinve situations and need some love and attention. We were there for about an hour and met kids ranging from 2-15 years old . During this time we collected health information from them like hand washing and brushing teeth as well as taught some easy hand washing techniques. Once the official stuff was done we were able to play fútbol with them and those little kids were SO good!
We only worked a half day today so that we could have the afternoon off to celebrate the 4th of July! See the next post on our Peruvian attempt at USA's Independce Day.
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