March 25th, 2011

I know it has been a while since I've written a blog post and so much has happened in the past couple of weeks, I'm not even sure where to begin!

First off, I finally got my permanent site placement and job assignment!!!! So exciting! Everybody ready? Drum roll please.....I got Region 3, West Coast, West Demerara Hospital!! Woot Woot!! Since I'm sure you guys have no idea what I'm talking about when I say Region 3 West Coast I'll explain, don't worry :)

Region 3 is the region of Guyana where I've been doing my training and where my host family lives and is located between the Demerara River and the Atlantic Ocean. It is right across the river from the capital, Georgetown and this will be the region I call home for the next 2 years. Currently I am with my host family in a village right along the ocean called Meten-mer-Zorg ( The majority of village and town names are left over from either Dutch or British colonialzation). My apartment where I'll be living after training ends on April 13th is about 25 minutes down the main road that runs along the coast (going towards Georgetown) in a village call Vreed-en-Hoop. Vreed-en-Hoop means 'peace and love' in Dutch, how awesome is that? :) I have my own apartment, which is really nice and comes furnished, and its on the top floor of a two story house. Another volunteer from last years group lives below me and my landlord lives in the house right in front of me. I am about a five minute walk from where I'll be working and either a 25 minute boat or bus ride to Georgetown. My village is a pretty good size and has a bank, post office, market and small grocery store as well as some small shops that sell snacks, drinks, and clothing. I will also be living right across the street from Chesters Fried Chicken resturant (like a KFC) which is the only place where women can go and have a drink (just beer) since the local rum shops or bars are only frequented by men. Definite bonus :) Oh, and my apartment has a room for my hammock (love that) and wireless internet is included in my rent. Overall, this place is nicer than the closet that barely passed for my place back in DC :)
And my job is even more exciting than my new apartment! I was assigned to work at West Demerara Hospital, which is the only major hospital in Region 3 and the 2nd largest public hospital in Guyana. My counterpart/mentor is the Assistant Hospital Administrator, Mr. Hira and he is pretty much in charge of hospital policy and making sure that the hospital runs as smoothly as possible on a day to day basis. My job at the hospital will be to work with Mr. Hira and the Regional Health Officer Dr Persuad (the guy in charge of every health center and hospital in region 3) to create and implment mental health policy in Guyana. Right now, like a lot of developing countries, there is no mental health policy in Guyana. There is no national policy or best practices in place to identify, treat, or prevent mental health or substance abuse issues. Suicide, depression, and substance abuse are extremely high in Guyana but they are not seen as health problems and often stigmatized so that people don't seek help. My job for the next 2 years will be to create a national policy on mental health, substance abuse, and domestic violence and submit that to the Ministry of Health. No pressure or anything :) I am so so so so excited to get started on this. I know it will be a lot of work but being able to work on something like this, to actually develop working policy and possibly implement real change in Guyana is amazing.

I also have another secondary project to work on, in my spare time from creating national health policy (hilarious). Mr. Hira also wants me to work on creating a sanitation and hygiene policy for the hospital and work with the doctors, nurses, and other staff members to follow it. Right now, medical waste is disposed of with the regular trash, there is almost no concept of seperating out hazardous waste or bodliy fluid waste or even used needles. Everything gets lumped together and then dumped. I have witnessed red hazardous waste bags full of god knows what just sitting out in the open. I've seen nurses wear the same pair of disposable gloves to give injections to 3 different patients, without stopping to change the gloves or wash their hands. It is very disheartening to see such practices going on, especially when these are basic things that can be done very easily and have such a huge effect of health and disease control. So hopefully I will be able to put together a working policy on that and get the staff to understand why it is important to follow it and maintain it at all times.

My 3rd project ( not sure how long they think i'm going to be here) is to help in setting up the first and only electronic medical records system in the country. Right now every patients medical records are on paper and the system is ineffective and disorganized. West Demerara hospital is slowly moving towards putting all the information on computers and making it so that every health center can access the same medical records system. I will help out with gathering the information and inputting it into the system.

So that is my official job and site placement!!!! Everyone was so anxious and nervous to find out and they really made us wait until the last minute. I could not be more happy with my placement, it fits me perfectly and the location where I will be living is exactly what I wanted, an urban area on the coast close to other volunteers. It really is the perfect assignment :) I still have 3 more weeks of training so I don't officially start my job or move into my apartment until April but I am very excited to get started on what I know will be a challenging and rewarding 2 years. Love and miss you all, can't wait to start getting some letters from everyone!! (hint hint, my mom and dad have the address for you all)

Love,
Lindsay