ER: Honduras Finale

I have spent the majority of the last four days at Hospital Escuela, the public hospital in Tegucigalpa. I've been in and out of the ER, the operating room, the children's ward, and the blood bank. It has been quite the experience and has given me a new, and very real look into Honduran life.

SATURDAY: Saturday morning I woke up to a ringing cell phone at 5 am. It was one of the other nurses from the clinic asking me if I could come and take a look at a boy who came in with severe abdominal pain. I went to the clinic to see the boy. He had all of the characteristics of acute appendicitis: sever pain in the right lower quadrant, an extremely high fever, vomiting, etc. When he continued to worsen, we decided him to take him to the Hospital in Tegucigalpa. I rode in the ambulance with him to the hospital. Depending on who you ask, me or the driver Juan Abel, the ambulance ride may or may not have been more dangerous then the suspected appendicitis. Normally, it takes approximately an hour to get to Tegucigalpa from the ranch. We made it through traffic, over twisting mountain roads, and to the hospital in under a half hour. I feared for my life on more than one occasion!

Once we arrived at the Hospital, we pushed our way through a crowd of people to get to the ER. It appeared that they were going to attend to us rather quickly. Unfortunately appearances are deceiving! We waited and waited, and then waited a little bit more. I had to carry the lab specimens to the lab myself to be tested, wait for the results and bring them back to the the ER. On more than one occasion I had to search for the doctor and basically demand that the assess Rodolfo. When we got the results back from the blood test, the white blood count was extremely extremely low. With appendicitis you would expect it to be very high because of the infection. I asked if they could repeat the test, which they surprisingly did. The results were the same. I started to worry that this child might be immuno supressed because of some other illness like HIV or Leukemia. In the meantime, Rodolfo's pain had subsided and he was resting comfortably. I called the NPH director and asked if we could take him to a private clinic to have the hemogram drawn again. We went to clinic just down the street and surprise, all of his lab results were normal. We also had an x-ray done at the clinic and discovered that Rodolfo just had a severe, severe case of constipation. It was quite the day.

From the private clinic we made the trip back to Hospital Escuela. Not for Rodolfo, but for another kid from the ranch who broke his wrist playing soccer. This time, we went in and out in about 30 minutes. A miracle! I had already spent almost 6 hours hounding doctors in the ER, so I think they were more than ready to be rid of me. We finally made it back to the Ranch around 8:30 on Saturday night.

MONDAY: On Monday I also spent approximately 12 hours at the Hospital Escuela. Thankfully this time it was not in the Emergency Room. A little 7 year old boy from Casa Suyapa, Lester Joel, had surgery to remove his tonsils and adenoids. He went into surgery at 8 am and I waited in the "waiting room" with the other family members of pediatric patients who were in surgery. I sat for 3 hours in dirty hallway crammed with other worried parents. The hallway was hot and musty. There was construction going on at the other end so the sound of drills and saws was muffling all of the talking and crying going on in the hallway. The floor was sticky with blood and urine, but after waiting for hours, people sat anyways. Finally when Joel came out of surgery we went back up to the hospital ward. He was in a room with 8 other children suffering from all types of injuries and illnesses. There was one bathroom for the entire ward, not just the room of 8. There was no toilet seat, no toilet paper, and it was absolutely filthy. The nurses never once came to check on my little patient. They never took his vitals or assessed him after surgery. Never once did I speak with a doctor or have anyone give me any information about his surgery. I can't imagine being in Hospital Escuela and not having someone to advocate for you. I am honestly not sure how anyone leaves that hospital without being sicker than they were when they were admitted!


TUESDAY: Tuesday was by far the most successful and triumphant day at Hospital Escuela. They have a rule there that if you are a patient, someone has to donate blood in your name before you are discharged from the hospital. I woke up this morning at 3:30, got on a bus, and went to donate blood. The line was long and the hygiene was still bad, but it was a success. Lester Joel was discharged by 7 am.

Hospital Escuela is extremely scarce for resources. On multiple occasions I had to leave the hospital and go to a nearby pharmacy to purchase tubes and containers for blood and urine testing. Also, they rarely use gloves or other safety precautions when performing procedures. They lack the basic resources to provide safe health care to the public. More than anything, my experience at Hospital Escuela opened my eyes to the drastic disparities that exist here. It was so sad to see what the average Honduran has to go through to find help for their most basic health needs. The patients there are all shuffled from line to line and given absolutely no autonomy over their own bodies. They are treated without any dignity at all.

Even though it is heart breaking and difficult to go to these places, I think it is so important to recognize the suffering in the world. I can't just sit and pretend that it does not exist. Its overwhelming because it seems that its a never ending cycle; there is no way to truly fix it. This can be disheartening and prevent a lot of people from even trying to do good in the world. For me it is even more of a reason to keep trying. I don't think it has to be specifically through labeled service or volunteer work, but just in the way you treat people ever day in even the simplest and most ordinary situations. "Love your neighboor as yourself."