Day 33

Awesome day :)

I spent my morning at the hospital in Maternity today. They needed someone who could go around and check the pre- and post-labor women's vital signs every half hour. I would check their breathing rate, heart rate, and take their blood pressure and temperature. It was really great to be able to practise what I learned yesterday! I definitely got a lot faster and more efficient at it! The best part about the whole morning was being able to talk to the new (or soon to be!) moms! Even though their vital signs are supposed to be checked every half hour, I noticed on the charts that the last time anyone had checked their vital signs was at 5:00am. I also noticed that in the pre-labor room of 12 women, only one of the women was accompanied by the dad (or anyone for that matter!). They were all sitting there alone, having to go through this life changing journey on their own. I was really able to look at this in a social context...and the reality is that most of these moms are going to have to raise their baby on their own. And then when another volunteer working in a local clinic told me this evening that at her clinic, she was assisting with the Depo Provera shots (a form of birth control - fully funded by the government thank goodness!). She also told me that there was a 13 year-old girl with a 2 week-old baby, all alone. Now, that's not to say that this doesn't happen in Canada. It happens in every country, in every nationality. It's just that where there are resources and services in Canada to help those in difficult situations succeed, in Nicaragua there are none (or very few...). Another reason why I am grateful to live in Canada.

My afternoon at the clinic was great. I am really learning a lot about clinical health care here, and getting a general idea of what the most common diagnoses are here.

Remember how I said that one of the other volunteers was super sick? Well she had some tests done today, and she has 2 parasites and an intestinal infection. Poor girl! And she could have got it from anything. Pretty scary stuff!