Today I went to the Puesto de Salud to talk to the head nurse and my main contact, Petronila. My intention wasto talk to her about PC related stuff like my upcoming training but like many things here, it didnt go as planned. Today was a consult day, like any other Monday Wednesday or Friday, she had lots of patients. Or non-patients, aka friends who just came in to gossip. But between the patients and gossip, Hugo, my other contact and assistant nurse at the Puesto came in along with Nestor the guy who runs the pharmacy and gave me some pretty awesome news...the doctor that we have been waiting to come to work in our Puesto for months is due to arrive in the next two weeks! This is a huge deal for my community and for the surrounding communitites that my Puesto serves. It is part of a new program run by the Ministerio de Salud that is bringing not only a doctor but another nurse and also more money to my tiny health center which is all sorely needed. The program is also supposed to mandate more community-based health projects like doing charlas in schools which is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing so I am stoked that they will be given more incentive to work with me on projects.
So with this new program coming I am thinking that the majority of my time is going to be spent helping them out at the Puesto, which I am really excited about. The previous volunteer had really utilized the Puesto to hold tallers (two or three day long courses) about reproductive health and other topics and the nurses in it had been partners in promoting good health practices in the community. Up to this point I had been looking for a way to “get in” at the Puesto and hopefully this is it.
I really want to help them get more organized and maybe even get them a computer. They serve my community but also five communities surrounding it as of now, and when the doctor comes, the nurses say they might start serving more. Since they serve so many people, there is incredible amounts of paperwork and from what I can tell their filing system is pretty archaic. Petronila is also very interested in adding another room to the Puesto. Its a really great idea, but is surely going to be a bit of a headache. I don't even know where to begin to help her with funding!
The slightly frustrating part for me is that even though I know they need a good dose of organization and theoretically I could go in one day and say “I'm going to reorganize everything and make it more efficient and easier for you to work” and I could do it all myself and make it perfect. BUT they would probably a) never understand it and b) revert to the old way as soon as possible since they were no part of it. Learning how to encourage people to do things that are good for them but still allowing them to own it and do it all (mostly) themselves is definitely the biggest challenge I face as a volunteer.
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