Today, I’d like to give you a tour of our lovely hospital. Nurture Hospital is a 20 minute drive from our hotel in the morning and an hour drive back at night. The traffic here gets so crazy at night, it triples our driving time. Nurture is down a small road that twists and turns through little streets lined with markets, apartment buildings, houses, fields to play on, and brick demolition sights. It is across the road from a small school so every morning at 9 am we see the kids walking to class with their notebooks. It is a six story building with views of vegetable fields, the train tracks and a building site that uses the most old-school building techniques, and if you look real far: the Bay of Bengal.
The hub for our team, where everyone pops in and out all day long, is the medical records office. Sherry is our captain and she makes sure everything is in order and papers are turned in. This is my home base, as well as Paola’s (the quarter master) and Brian’s (Mission Director).
Across the waiting room from our office is the PACU. This is the place patients go immediately after surgery to recover from anesthesia. Our PACU nurses do their best to wake patients quietly and get them oriented to go upstairs to the ward. The Ward Coordinator, Bo, works mostly there as well. The nurses in the PACU are Ellen and Sadie.
There are three operating stations at this hospital. Here lives our medical director, Becky. AND three surgeons: Fred, Jann and Soma; three anesthesiologists: John, Judy and Tracy; one nurse anesthetist: Joel; one head nurse, Carol; and three operating room nurses: Betty, Bonnie and Maryann. To make the operating room run, Ted is our sterilizer and his “office” is behind the operating rooms. He makes sure all the tools are immediately cleaned and sterilized for the next surgery.
All of this happens on the fourth floor. Upstairs is the ward. That is where patients go to recover. The pediatricians spend most of their time there, Leonard and Nevadita. Rayhana is our interpreter and she spends her time either helping in the ward or working with the speech pathologist to help families that did not get in this year for surgery.
Down below on the third floor is Aaron’s “den.” As a dentist, he has a room for pulling teeth as well as a lab where he makes obturators for patients. Today he gave one to a little boy that had a cleft palate and was not ready for surgery this year. The obturator is a plastic almost retainer that fits over his teeth to cover the hole in his palate to make eating and drinking easier.
Also on the third floor is Carolyn, the speech pathologist’s office. She sees about five walk-ins a day, helping with speech, feeding and eating practices, and any other general things patients may need.
In the break room you will find various snacks, beverages and local Rotarians. All in all it’s a nice place to be, considering people tend to be here for 12+ hours a day.
