Clinic happenings

We often times don't have many pictures to share of what goes on in the clinic on a daily basis.  Stopping to take pictures, or even asking to take pictures, isn't always the most respectful of ideas.

What everyone is able to do there really is impressive though.  Especially when you are trying to provide good care to people that sometimes do not have the funds to help themselves with medicines, feel the need to half their doses to make medicines last, or face a litany of other hurdles to keep paces with the challenges of life and living it.  

I did get this picture recently of Maria.  She is 93 years old.  Her family abandoned her, but another family took her in to care for.  She was using a stick to help her walk...but they were able to remedy that with a new walking cane.  She wasn't a patient officially, but when getting her the new walking piece, they took her blood pressure for good measure while she was waiting out the in parking lot.   

We have also pushed to do some remodeling in the clinic.

The patient and staff bathrooms we installed ten years ago were not the best.  We knew that when we put them in, but we were out of funds, and when push came to shove...it was open with temporary bathrooms, or not open for quite a while.  

Those temporary bathrooms were usable, and actually held up pretty well for what they were, but after ten years...they were past their prime, and not very easy to keep sanitary/clean. 

So we swallowed hard, and took the plunge to build them so they should not need touching again (other than cleaning and maybe some equipment repair) with concrete walls, tile that can be wiped down and won't stain with time, and more individualized bathrooms (individual lights, extractors, doors and walls that go all the way to the ceiling.  

Blue for the walls of course.  

Remodeling both bathrooms wasn't easy, but it definitely was needed.

Somewhat unique to our situation, because we run on cisterns, and sometimes run out of water, we created a way to continue to have water even when our main cistern is out to still have water in the bathrooms.  As you can imagine, in a clinic, bathrooms are not just necessary, but often times necessary with urgency.  
  
So we built a tower and bought yet another cistern to make these bathrooms independent for those times.

While we were at it, we moved the pila outside for washing out mops and the like.  Again, more hygienic.  We could not have even dreamed of this ten years ago since the property was not fenced.

And...notice the red second floor is now blue!  We had some fading with the red paint, and to avoid rust and more problems...we just painted the entire building (and some of the roof that also had fadining) 
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Of course, it can't be all good news.  The ultrasound that just arrived...doesn't work.  We are seeing if it can be fixed. Thankfully we have the portable still in good repair.  
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And this lovely phoropter also arrived broken. It was able to be fixed at some cost...which is when it was realized that it is setup backwards, as they are when used by ophthalmologists.  So it is usable...but a bit of a pain to translate everything for use giving prescriptions and glasses.  You think it is confusing when a doctor gives you an exam normally...think of the poor patient and doctor that had to figure that out the first time it was used here!    

Please pray for the staff of the clinic to continue to strive for excellent thought and care given to their patients, transmitting via word and deed as well the love of Christ in all they do!

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