Ready to work

We are officially Peace Corps Volunteers! Passed all of our tests and were sworn in by the US Ambassador on Thursday August 28 [Gary’s birthday] just before Gustav hit land [it was no big deal in Chapelton-we're protected by the Bull Head Mtns to the north]. Now it’s down to work.

We have several projects we will be working on; all are supposed to be in advisory or training capacities. The first will be to train the nursing staff on the use of an ECG [electrocardiogram]. They say they have one in the hospital but when a test has to be administered they have to bring in an outside contractor. It will save them considerable time and money if they can do it themselves and it will certainly be beneficial for the patients. The only problem is, so far, they can’t seem to locate the equipment. It appears that what they thought was an ECG was only a monitor. We’re headed to the hospital this morning to search in all the nooks and crannies.

Another thing the hospital wants us to do is set up a Wellness Center for employees and patients. We’ll have to do some community assessments to insure it’s structured to meet the stakeholders needs and wants. Once it’s set up we’ll train staff to run it.

A very large project will be to reorganize the admissions and records department’s operations. Right now it doesn’t function effectively. For instance, if a patient arrives today their record cannot be retrieved again for a week, even if they must return tomorrow. We’re hoping to get the hospital set up with linked computers and get several staff trained to operate, maintain, and repair the software. Right now we’re investigating several options for accessing hardware and software. We’ll need to locate at least four computers for them.

When patients arrive at the hospital they have a minimum three hour wait before they’ll be seen. The waiting room probably seats at least 100 people, all just sitting and waiting. At one end there is a TV mounted on the wall for some to watch. The staff has suggested having health education tapes playing. We will see what can be done. We can do presentations on a whole slew of topics from the basics like BP, cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, etc. to sleep, skin health, hand washing [this is very important in Jamaica, breaking the oral/fecal contamination cycle is a major health problem], exercise, etc. Over time we figure we can produce at least a dozen of these tapes.

In the community there is interest in reviving a community association. Apparently the quality of life has fallen off and some want to take action to stem the tide. Littering [a chronic Jamaican problem], loud Reggae music 24/7, packs of dogs roaming the streets 24/7, and groups of aimless young men with nothing to do are just some of the concerns. We are coordinating with church and civic leaders to identify necessary/available resources, interest, and potential solutions.

As a spin off of the community association several people want to revive a defunct community center. One thing they want are fitness classes. I’ll train residents on how to develop and run exercise sessions. As of now five women are walking in the community with me [they all need good shoes to support their bodies-I’m asking a former colleague at BU to help me locate donated shoes, if you have any or know of a source please email be at gskrinar@gmail.com].

We’re sure that more projects will surface as we become deeply integrated into the hospital community. We’ll keep you apprised of our successes and failures.

Will add more pics with the next posting.

Laita [Jamaican’s don’t say good-bye, it’s too permanent, later is temporary], Margaret