Vuelta Grande Day 1

The morning began early for a few and later for others. Auggie, Walter and Mike began organizing our excursion early in the morning hours, suffering a few miscommunications (something you can almost garuntee to occur in these conditions) but ultimately succeeding in tracking down most of our equipment. The first van left by 8am with most of the men who had generously volunteered their muscles for heavy lifting and set-up duties. The second van which carried most of the medical group and other volunteers followed up later in the morning with other much needed supplies such as water and lunch.

Jan explained to our van that one of her goals this trip is to continue getting medical history for her patients and give them complete exams. The people of Vuelta Grande are supposed to receive medical care from the state doctor once every two months, however this is often not the case. In fact, when the doctor does come around which is on average two times a year, the people refer to a more archaic form of health care in that they are responsible for telling the doctor what is wrong with them (rather than being given a proper exam) and then they are usually given vitamins and sent on their way.

Once we reached the site the medical team was quick to clean house and set up their side. I think all the members of our team were pleased to see there had been improvements to the school. A kitchen had been added on as well as classrooms finished, and most importantly (maybe only for me) a roof had been installed over the bathrooms! With Ralph and Walter’s help the medical group had their electricity up and running first. They saw their first patient by 11am and by 3pm ended their day seeing their 19th patient. Maureen Welch ( a pediatric nurse) was at her post by the door beginning with the initial screenings and Auggie and Dr. Paquette were inside with the follow up exams. Even Physical Therapist Maureen Gonzales was able to do an assessment on a patient and created an exercise plan and donated a brace to a woman suffering from back pain.

Flor, a representative of the Rotary Club of Antigua graced us with her lovely presence today. We hope that she will be able to continue assisting with translating for the rest of the week because she is warm and a wonderful help. While chatting with her she explained that she did not approve of the dog that was tied up by the monkey bars. He seemed friendly enough but she explained her reasoning. On the weekends the dog is kept locked up in one of the classrooms and on Monday whoever the teacher is whose dog it is comes and cleans up the mess from the weekend. I agreed that did not seem to be a very clean system for the classroom. However, Flor assured me it was better than the COW that occupied the space last year! At that time it was not a classroom.

Around noon the Dental team was still struggling with electrical issues so the 4 dental students started a game of futbal (soccer) with some kids. Of course the kids who are like little David Beckhams schooled the dentists by scoring 8 goals within 10 minutes of play, the future doctors responded with 5 of their own goals but I think they had better keep to their aspirations of dentistry. At the same time, Walter and Ralph had quite a time wiring things as one of their tool boxes from last year had disapeared. They were able to jimmyrig some extra wires together in order to fashion an extension cord of sorts. So by 2pm the Dental team was up and running with OHSU dental students Ben Gonzales and Charlie Hartman performing the first oral examinations and Dr. Methven and Dr. Ransom starting in on extractions and fillings. The third chair was occupied by OHSU dental students Mike Harper and Renee Roberts under the doctors’ instructions doing exctraction procedures. Verity Carusso assisted Dr. Methven and Erin Durdel assisted Dr. Ransom while Amy Carusso coordinated the patient flow and translated as needed. Also assisting the dental team were Jill Methven and Tom Carusso who had the dirty job of sterilization of the dental tools.

Unfortunately I was unable to catch up with the clean water project so more to follow on their progress tomorrow.
So although the day began in some chaos of tracking missing tools and equipment, all in all it seemed to run smoothly once people had their setups intact and patients were seen, young and old.


***Pictures are to follow***