Beya Suites Punta Gorda

Thursday was our last full day at the clinic. Friday is traditionally rather slow, so we were able to leave a bit early to start our travels to Honduras. So, for our last full day, while I was working on those EKGs, John had the opportunity to see a bit more of Belize.<br><br>The Hillside Medical Clinic, one of the partners for the HOPE clinic this week, goes twice a week to the more remote ...

... a feel for what we would be doing in the coming week. <br><br>The project we're working on is called HOPE, which stands for Helping Older People Equally. HOPE is an active organization here in Belize, and for the second year, they're running a special week in conjunction with the International Day of the Elderly. The week is a joint project between a group of nuns here in Punta ...

... Emma ended up watching the birds and Anwen and I had a very quiet morning watching the telepathic doctor) There was a rather embarrassing moment today when the doctor left us alone with a pregnant girl for a long time and we got chatting. After the usual &#8216;how old are you&#8217; followed by &#8216;where are your husbands/children&#8217; comments &#8230; (and the ever increasing comment of how pretty I look in my ID badge picture with my yellow hair&#8230; the ...

... language barrier at times between the poorly English speaking Cuban doctors and the Belizean patients. We observed some incredibly bizarre practise (Two ladies complaining of period pain were labelled PID and given Metronidazole!!!!). We observed prescriptions 2 pages long for people coming in complaining of the symptoms of a viral infection and we observed people being prescribed IM injections when it&#8217;s just not necessary (there is some believe down here that ...

... but we treated a lot of members of all these families!!!! The main medicines we gave out were de-worming, vitamins and paracetamol. These people are so so far away from any health care that we were giving out Oral rehydration for a few days of diaorrhoea and Tylenol to everyone! Our first family had ten children (The mother was 29!) The latest had been a C-sect (which would have taken her at least 6 hours to get to ...

... none, and got told by doctor Dick to just talk to her. Turns out she has 6 children aged 11 years down to this baby. The baby wasn&#8217;t planned. She&#8217;s not getting any sleep and still has to look after all the children, clean the house, do all the cooking every day. Her husband does not help her with the baby and does not listen to her when she says she doesn&#8217;t feel well. She&#8217;s 26 and isolated with no family or neighbours nearby who ...

... a month since he ran out of his phenobarb!!! We urged his mum to go and get him some meds ASAP but it turned out that she&#8217;d been so busy since the birth of another little one a month ago, and we suspected from her symptoms she might have endometritis. Suddenly our focus was back on her and after dispensing some pretty strong antibiotics told her she&#8217;d have to come back on firday &#8211; she seemed dubious ...

... language barriers but nothing major and I managed to get through today without prescribing any antibiotics (considering yesterday I was quite impressed!!!)<br><br>The clinic is a primary care facility. We have 3 consulting areas with examination couches, opthalma/otoscopes, sphygomanometers and other basic equipment. We can do blood sugars and urinalisis, and we have an ECG machine (one of the very few around.. today a doctor from the A&amp;E of the hospital ...

... passports and we were already way past the border. I was relived to see the small writing saying Immigration on the little building he ran into. It was a nice ride, even if there were about 25 people packed into the van and hanging out the side of the door. The road goes through a bunch of pineapple and banana plantations and, since the van was too full to close the door, there was an awesome breeze!<br><br>We arrived in Puerto Barrios, a tiny port town that doesn´t ...

... than Spanish (not to mention the French or Dutch elements), than they are of the Guatemalan. Ever seen the Guatemalan navy? Neither have I, but I suspect what there is of one is stationed mostly on the Pacific coast. I can&#8217;t imagine them going through the Panama Canal just so they can get together for joint exercises. Puerto Cortes down the road and over the line in ...