We had no power all day yesterday and the clinic does not have a generator so many of the rooms were very dark. At one point I walked into the Topico room and found one of the nursing students trying to clean a man´s foot and treat his wound with no light at all. However, the worst of it was that a woman was in labor and the birthing room has no natural light and the emergency lights on the wall died after about 15 minutes. So I ran home to get my mini maglite and Elena ran to get her head lamp. As I came back into the room (not even 15 minutes later) the baby had just been born and there is Keri holding Elena´s head lamp up for the obstetrics nurse. If we didn´t have our two lights, they would have been doing everything by the light of three candles.
So I held my flash light up so Charo could stitch the woman up and deal with the afterbirth. The most horrific part of all of this is just how different they treat the patients here. I guess while the woman was pushing, a nursing student was holding her hand, but as soon as the baby was born, no one really spoke the the poor woman. There was no "Congratulations!" or "Good Job" or even just a "You have a baby boy!". They do not use pain medication at all. When Charo was stitching her up, she gave one shot of anesthetic in the vaginal area and just set to work. The woman was in so much pain and no one even talked to her! And, she didn´t get to hold the baby afterwards at all. Then to top it all off, after they kind of cleaned her up and gave her a sanitary pad, they asked for her underwear. Well, her mother was nowhere to be found and the girl did not have a clean pair of underwear. Charo starts yelling at the top of her lungs, "Underwear!" "She needs Underwear" (en español of course) for all of the clinic to hear. So someone had to run to the market and buy her undies. The poor woman!
I learned a lot about the kind of midwife I want to be in the future just by watching the entire process. We all just kind of were watching in shock -- no lights, the yelling and screaming (on the part of the obstetrics nurse, not the patient), the joking of the other nurses, the lack of communication or caring toward the patient. All of it was a lot to take in! But, I am very excited to be here until July and participate in more births. This birth was complicated because the girl had syphillis and she was supposed to deliver in the hospital in Cusco but she went into labor a month early and could not make it to Cusco in time. So everyone was all suited up to prevent any blood contact. They also were really worried about the mother passing syphillis on to the baby. Very educational! This is why I am here!
Last night, a group of us ate dinner together and then we all headed over to our new volunteer house for a bonfire and drinks. I just sat around talking to my friends here and thought , "Wow, I am really happy here. I love my life right now!" I live in a beautiful town, I have amazing friends, and the people here are so great. Life is good!
Today was another successful breakfast at the clinic. Poor Keri got peed on by a baby and I was a weighing, measuring, taking blood pressure phenom today. Some of these babies are just so little! I had to weigh and measure a 5 day old and a 15 day old. So cute!
And our baby Fabricio is coming home today (he should already be home) so we get to hold and cuddle him for the rest of the weekend before we leave.
We are having a painting and pizza party at the new volunteer house tonight and then KB is having a roof top party at his hostel tomorrow night. Fun times in Ollanta!
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