Sunday, December 4, 2011

Health care on the island (or why I really don't want to get sick here)


It’s been just over a week since I got back from the trip to Santa Cruz. I’ve started my final class and everything is going well. I’ve been swimming a lot and trying to enjoy my last couple of weeks on the beach. Yesterday, I went snorkeling at La Loberia and saw three HUGE sea turtles!!

Anyway, I wanted to write a little about the health care system on the island and some of the experiences I’ve had or have heard of.

The issues with health here are vast. The biggest one, as I’ve mentioned before, is that potable water is nonexistent here. Drinkable water is obtained only by boiling water or using bottled water. Furthermore, despite many residents citing this as the number one concern on the island, the government here really isn’t interested in fixing this issue (despite having the money and ability to do so). Instead, excess money is poured into the boardwalk, the tourist industry, and the travel agencies to draw additional tourists.

Further issues come with the availability of health care. The hospital here is small, understaffed, and very under supplied. Here are just three examples of major issues that have happened while I’ve been here:

1 - There is a huge lack of specialists here including no orthopedic care, no cardiologist, and currently no anesthesiologist. When we first arrived there was one anesthesiologist but in Oct he went on a one-month vacation. During this time a patient came into the hospital needing immediate surgery for appendicitis. Shelby, who volunteers at the hospital was there and this is how she explained what happened: A nurse or assistant was present when the man came in and mentioned that he had seen the anesthesiologist work before and might have even helped him once. He said he could give anesthesia to the man who needed the surgery. A great debate went up between other nurses, who supported him, and the head surgeon, who said he was too inexperienced. The surgeon ended up winning and the man was transported by boat to Santa Cruz where there is slightly more advanced care (and an anesthesiologist).

2- About six weeks ago the marine class had the opportunity to head to Leon Dormido to do some diving as part of their class. They were with a couple guides including one young man around 21. While the group went down to dive the young man stayed on the surface snorkeling to assist if needed. What followed is slightly unclear but it appears the man had a heart attack. He was pulled onto the boat and given oxygen and CPR as they rushed the boat back to land (another boat would be waiting to meet the divers when they surfaced).

When they arrived at the hospital they had no oxygen to give the man. (Rumor is that there had been oxygen at the hospital, given just recently by a donation from USFQ, but it was sold on the black market for a lot of money). The hospital essentially pronounced him dead (it’s a 25min boat ride from Leon Dormido to the dock here). However, the family was irate. There is a belief here that heart attack victims have 72hours to come back to life. I’m not sure exactly where this thought comes from but they were mad that the hospital wasn’t going to do anything else to help him. They took him from the hospital and brought him elsewhere looking for other care. Sadly, the man did not spontaneously recover but the family would not allow an autopsy so no cause of death was ever confirmed.

3- Recently a friend of mine (another GAIAS student) was riding on a moped type motorcycle (extremely common here). Her brother was driving and it was nighttime. Neither of them were drinking and she was wearing a helmet. However, he went around a turn a little too fast and caught some loose gravel in the road. The bike tipped and my friend flew off the bike. She landed face down with her arms, face, and toe taking quite a beating. She knew she needed to get to the emergency room because she was bleeding heavily and she had hit her head. So she walked several blocks over to the emergency room which they opened up for her. They looked her over briefly, poured some bottled water on her cuts, gave her some Ibuprofen (the strongest pain killer they had), and sent her home. They told her to stop back the next day since she might have a concussion. Luckily she was fine and the next day she was able to have them properly clean out her wounds. They gave her sufficient gauze for everything and explained that she had to shower with bottled water since the water here isn’t clean enough to keep away infection from large open wounds.

The list could continue on and on…. Pregnant women do everything they can to get to Quito or Guayaquil to have their babies because of poor neo-natal care.  You purchase your own antibiotics, injection shots, and vaccines at the pharmacy and bring them to a doctor to administer. Two people recently died of asthma attacks because of lack of proper care to help them.

Yet, the government just replaced the benches on the boardwalk and installed nice new wood lampposts. They are building a new hospital now and hoping to draw in more specialists from the mainland. Yet the construction is going slow (like most construction here) and no one knows exactly when the building will be done or if it will even do any good. It’s as terrifying as it is depressing to see this.  

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