Visting the Guatemalan hospital
By definition, a "hospital" is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized medical and nursing staff and medical equipment. When thinking about a hospital, I sort of pictured a set off of the show Gray's Anatomy. The white linen, white walls, blue scrubs, monitors beeping every which way with gloves and antiseptic gel everywhere you look. Here in Guatemala, I assumed that it would look similar but be outdated compared to what I was used to. The problem with assuming anything, is that you never know the real truth. The 150 year old Guatemalan hospital was nothing that as nursing students in the United States, we would probably ever imagine. Walking in, the entrance was gated and locked to the outside community. After entry, patients were sitting outside the room to be seen, waiting their turn again. Within the hospital there were various rooms based on the specialty that was needed to be seen. It ranged from men's and women's health to OB to trauma and even OR/surgeries. The wards offered were pretty similar to the ones in the United States. What was probably most interesting was that there was typically only one doctor PER specialty and usually one nurse per specialty as well. In Guatemala, there are nursing assistants who do various duties such as adminstering medications, paperwork, assisting with activities of daily living and pretty much could do most of what a registered nurse could do in the US. Within the hospital there was an intensive care unit, or ICU, for both pediatrics and adults. For BOTH of the wards, there were only 10 ventilators available. From my ICU experiance in the US, most patients I have encountered have been on the ventilator or intubated. Not just in the ICU, but overall resources were pretty limited. We were told that most of the medical supplies at the hospital were donated by nursing programs that did not need them anymore. I can also say that from my tour of the entire hospital, I did not see one hand sanitizer stand; and not many nurses working with patients used gloves. However, I can say that the hospital made the best of the worst. Having limited resources, the hospital does an amazing job to create a healthcare environment to meet the needs of the community. It was definitely not what we were expecting, but we were very proud to be able to experience it first-hand. It is amazing to see the differences between hospital norms in the United States and here in Guatemala. -- Desi
Visiting the Neonatal Ward
Our Tour of the Amatitlan Hospital
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