El Hospital IESS

Today, or rather, very early this morning, Adrienne, James, Eve (the other students with me in the group, more on them in another post) and I grabbed a taxi to our first clinic visit.

I still need some time to process everything and will most likely have more to say at a later time, but for now, I want to tell you what I saw. I want to be able to remember tomorrow, because I suspect that even 24 hours will find me caught in another new experience, another whirlwind.

The taxi quickly takes us past la puerta de urgencia (where we are supposed to meet Dr. Jimenez) and drops us off unceremoniously at the wrong door. Our first task: navigate the hospital and meet our doctor at the correct door, on time.

It is surprising how far a white coat and a name tag will take you in an Ecuadorian hospital. There are police and security everywhere, but they merely step aside and allow three grigos and one asian girl to pass. We try some doors--no luck. In a second attempt, we turn a corner, down a long hall and are met with possibly the longest line of people I have ever seen, waiting patiently for a clinic to open. As much as I look at them and wonder what they are doing, what problems they have, and how long they´ve been waiting, they look at me with an equal amount of curiousity.

We take the back way and end up inside the emergency room(s). No Dr. Jimenez. Confused and overwhelmed, what I remember most about the hospital, in this moment, is the smell. I know people remark on the unique smell of hospitals all the time, but there was this strange stale musty-ness to the place. I didn´t know if I could last the four hours.

We wait and, as our group sticks out SO much, Dr. Jimenez finds us before we find him. Greetings, nervous laughter, we follow him up to the third floor: surgery.

He only has two patients today and as such, our visit will only be for about an hour rather than 4.

A side note here: medical spanish is NOT like conversational spanish (much like medical english is not like conversational english).

So, Dr. Jimenez, an extremely generous man, lifts up the first patient¨s gown to reveal a bloated belly with a bandage and a colonstomy (sp?) bag. I don´t know what I was expecting, but my stomach turned a little. This first patient didn¨t really bother me so much, but what else would I be seeing? What else would I be asked to touch, to feel?

Overwhelming to say the least...

(I will continue this later, as I am with some other students, visiting Mariscal today.)