Tacachico Clinic
Although I spent most of Thursday afternoon out and about delivering water filters, I still had a chance to capture some action around the mission site and print some photos for people.
The setup in Tacachico is a little unique in that they have an actual hospital building. I don't know the details of how or when it was built, but it's pretty new and clean-looking, so it can't be that old. However, it's completely empty. It looks like it's never been used full-time for its intended purpose. Obviously, that makes it a great setup for us, since we can move right in and pretend that we are in a real clinic, instead of something more like a summer camp!
The first location the patients are taken to is triage, which is set up in the hospital lobby.
After triage, patients move to the waiting area - rows of seats in the main hallway by the registration desk.
From the waiting area, patients are taken to see providers. Because of the hospital setup, some providers have individual rooms, while others are doubled up.
If the provider wants a lab done, the patient goes to visit Mary. Her lab looks quite in its native element in this location!
Occupational therapy is staged in a room with a few beds in it - I guess that makes it the hospital "floor"?
Eyeglasses were outside on Wednesday, but got moved into a surgery room on Thursday. You'd never be able to tell just by looking at the picture, but it is very hot in there - even with a giant fan blowing in everybody's faces.
Pharmacy is in the registration desk. Normally, there are not this many people milling around in the pharmacy. However, in Tacachico, it's a desirable place to be, because once the power started running on Thursday, it had air conditioning - a rare treat!
Thursday clinic went much more smoothly than Wednesday. We arrived on time, and saw a lot of patients - over 300, I believe. But God wasn't done allowing us to be tested yet...
We headed home and were about 15 minutes or so out of town when the bus in front of us blew a tire. It was really loud. Some of the passengers thought it was gunfire for a few seconds and a few of them even hit the deck. We were right behind and we could hear the whack-whack-whack noise that the blown tire was making on the road.
Alfonso pulled over to examine the damage. These buses have dual tires in the rear, so technically, the bus was still functional, but there was no way it could carry a full load. By divine providence, there was a third bus in the convoy: the one carrying the translators. So, while Alfonso used a big knife to cut away as much of the broken tire as he could, everyone else piled into the translator bus, and we were back on the road in about 10 minutes.
Given all that had happened in the past two days, you would think we would get a break, right? Wrong. Not 15 minutes later, the bus I was on started making a load repetitive clicking noise. It sounded like a tire had picked up a stone or other sharp object. I leaned out the window to see if I could tell what it was, but I couldn't see anything. The driver was doing the same, but his vantage point was even worse than mine. I told the guard as much and then we pulled over. After various inspections of the tires, the crew popped the hood to see if there as an engine issue. Almost immediately, they started shaking their heads and even laughing incredulously.
I hollered out the window to a translator to ask what the issue was and all he would say is "it's really bad". I passed the message along inside the bus while the driver got on his phone and called someone. Eventually, they all piled back on the bus, one of them holding a completely shredded drive belt. Turns out that it was an accessory belt of some kind - I believe it may have been for the A/C system. In any case, the bus was still usable, although Jacob kept a close eye on the temperature gauge for the remainder of the trip.
I was afraid that all the delays would cause us to get caught in the same gridlock we hit on Wednesday, but that was not the case. We only got slowed down once. Dr. Mike pulled out his rosary and led us in a chaplet of divine mercy, and I kid you not, the minute we finished the final prayer, the traffic cleared, and we were making good time again.
A few hours later, we had finished dinner, shared our experiences for the day and were finally in bed, thankful that we had been able to overcome various adversities, and resting for our last full day in El Salvador.
The setup in Tacachico is a little unique in that they have an actual hospital building. I don't know the details of how or when it was built, but it's pretty new and clean-looking, so it can't be that old. However, it's completely empty. It looks like it's never been used full-time for its intended purpose. Obviously, that makes it a great setup for us, since we can move right in and pretend that we are in a real clinic, instead of something more like a summer camp!
The first location the patients are taken to is triage, which is set up in the hospital lobby.
After triage, patients move to the waiting area - rows of seats in the main hallway by the registration desk.
From the waiting area, patients are taken to see providers. Because of the hospital setup, some providers have individual rooms, while others are doubled up.
If the provider wants a lab done, the patient goes to visit Mary. Her lab looks quite in its native element in this location!
Occupational therapy is staged in a room with a few beds in it - I guess that makes it the hospital "floor"?
Eyeglasses were outside on Wednesday, but got moved into a surgery room on Thursday. You'd never be able to tell just by looking at the picture, but it is very hot in there - even with a giant fan blowing in everybody's faces.
Pharmacy is in the registration desk. Normally, there are not this many people milling around in the pharmacy. However, in Tacachico, it's a desirable place to be, because once the power started running on Thursday, it had air conditioning - a rare treat!
Thursday clinic went much more smoothly than Wednesday. We arrived on time, and saw a lot of patients - over 300, I believe. But God wasn't done allowing us to be tested yet...
We headed home and were about 15 minutes or so out of town when the bus in front of us blew a tire. It was really loud. Some of the passengers thought it was gunfire for a few seconds and a few of them even hit the deck. We were right behind and we could hear the whack-whack-whack noise that the blown tire was making on the road.
Alfonso pulled over to examine the damage. These buses have dual tires in the rear, so technically, the bus was still functional, but there was no way it could carry a full load. By divine providence, there was a third bus in the convoy: the one carrying the translators. So, while Alfonso used a big knife to cut away as much of the broken tire as he could, everyone else piled into the translator bus, and we were back on the road in about 10 minutes.
Given all that had happened in the past two days, you would think we would get a break, right? Wrong. Not 15 minutes later, the bus I was on started making a load repetitive clicking noise. It sounded like a tire had picked up a stone or other sharp object. I leaned out the window to see if I could tell what it was, but I couldn't see anything. The driver was doing the same, but his vantage point was even worse than mine. I told the guard as much and then we pulled over. After various inspections of the tires, the crew popped the hood to see if there as an engine issue. Almost immediately, they started shaking their heads and even laughing incredulously.
I hollered out the window to a translator to ask what the issue was and all he would say is "it's really bad". I passed the message along inside the bus while the driver got on his phone and called someone. Eventually, they all piled back on the bus, one of them holding a completely shredded drive belt. Turns out that it was an accessory belt of some kind - I believe it may have been for the A/C system. In any case, the bus was still usable, although Jacob kept a close eye on the temperature gauge for the remainder of the trip.
I was afraid that all the delays would cause us to get caught in the same gridlock we hit on Wednesday, but that was not the case. We only got slowed down once. Dr. Mike pulled out his rosary and led us in a chaplet of divine mercy, and I kid you not, the minute we finished the final prayer, the traffic cleared, and we were making good time again.
A few hours later, we had finished dinner, shared our experiences for the day and were finally in bed, thankful that we had been able to overcome various adversities, and resting for our last full day in El Salvador.
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