Not just a tourist…

I have been working. Really. Kind of. Actually my first day, I was taken by Dr. Fisher to meet the staff at the Ministry of Health (MOH) responsible for the training and implementation of the HIS at the various sights. I was given a training session which everybody else knew I was getting except me until we got there. I might like organizing things. Maybe. So I enjoyed my introduction to the system and could immediately see the potential. I think it will take a while for me to find my place working with the staff as there is a different way to do and approach things here, but they have been very welcoming and I am sure that once I am more settled and oriented, I’ll fit right in. From my understanding, Naajiyah is the primary supervisor of training and responsible for the updating of the system, and I will also be working with Maria and Samuel who have taken me under their wing or at least offered to. When the CSIH project ends, they will be the team that I will be working with. Currently it seems that I will be divided between CSIH and the MOH.

Yesterday I was on the road by 6am to travel to New Amsterdam with Emilia, Dr. Ramotar (microbiologist expert consultant from Canada), Joyce (the new STI lab coordinator – of all the labs!) and of course, Glenn. The Berbice River is one of the three rivers that divides this country (definitely the land of many waters) into regions and we had to take a ferry to cross it. I hear a bridge has been in the works, but I also hear that it has always been in the works. The main visit was to check out the STI/TB lab at the new hospital (a project between Japan and Guyana, with some equipment in the lab funded by CSIH) and the Family Health Clinic established by CSIH. The hospital and lab were definitely an eye opener for me and I am not sure how or if I am ready to describe it, but here is a glimpse. I don’t think that I am over estimating by saying that there were probably about one hundred people waiting in and around the hospital for treatments, tests or emergency visits. Most of the hospital is open air which I guess never occurred to me that hospitals could be like that. The offices and labs are air conditioned. A big moment for me was walking into the STI/TB diagnostic lab and seeing regular pipette tips and serological pipet tips being soaked in the sink, presumably for re-use. It made me think of every time over the past three years that I have racked tips and thrown them out when I dropped them on the counter or floor. Dr. Ramotar and Joyce talked to them about STI lab plans and reviewed gram stains with the MPTs (multi purpose technicians) which was also kind of fun for me to review as well.

Today I visited the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) and specifically the Central Medical Laboratory (CML) for training sessions with Naajiyah, Maria and Samuel. The training sessions themselves were brief, probably 10-20 minutes, but my understanding is that they find it more effective to go through it and then hang around for questions later or just make themselves visible by frequent visits. The official training of receptionists, technicians, doctors and nurses apparently only began a couple of weeks ago and they would like to have the system operating more fully by the end of October. Pharmacists are next on the list after there is somewhat of a routine between the clinics and labs, with the final goal being the whole hospital. Samuel gave me a tour of the hospital and I was more prepared for it after yesterday. It is also all indoors, but I got to see every area not just the waiting room and lab (emergency, pharmacy, eye clinic, pediatrics, surgery...). We also visited the TB chest clinic and the GUM (genito-urinary medicine) clinic which are both test sites for the HIS. I felt semi-useful at the GUM clinic as I cleaned a STI counsellor’s mouse and helped change the date on her computer so that the system could calculate patient ages correctly.

For those of you who would like to know more about the project, check out the website. I realize that I didn’t get to go into a lot of detail with some of you (mostly because I didn’t know a lot), but this is a good overview. http://www.csih.org/en/projects/guyana/index.html

Alright, I am about all posted out. I'll try for atleast weekly updates after this, but I think this has been a pretty good introduction for where my adventures have taken me so far. What do you think? :)

Take care
xoxo