Ecuador Juntos

My favorite new Spanish word is "juntos" meaning together.  Our group of BYU students has been great being together this week.  We have done a lot in one week--worked in the medical surgical hospital, the pediatric hospital, the maternity hospital, taught in the community, taught emergency assessment to the firemen (that was due to one of our instructors, Susie), attended the temple, and held a multi-stake health fair. 
   I got to go to the community a couple of days to work in the Centros de Salud (health centers).  This was a lot of fun for me, because I haven't gotten to do this before.  They asked us to do emergency simulations, including emergency delivery.  We started with an emergency delivery simulation--one of our students came into the clinic saying she was ready to have a baby and "delivered" the baby quickly.  The health director liked the simulation so much that we didn't do simulations of any other emergency situations--only birth simulations.
   I also went back to Sotomayor maternity hospital.  I loved it!!  The structure hasn't changed--it still consists of a labor room full of labor patients, a delivery room, and then a postpartum room (post delivery).  Wednesday, May 1 was "Labor Day" here in Ecuador, and for the maternity hospital, this was certainly the case.  Everyone was in labor!!  A lot of them had had their babies before we got there--there were women who had delivered in the postpartum room, in the halls, and even in the delivery room.  Probably the funnest part of the day was when our students were providing labor support for a mom, and she delivered her baby!!  They caught the baby as it slid out.  I think they were more shocked that anything.  The labor and delivery staff and I were just steps away. 
  The maternity hospital is doing some great things.  One is to become a baby-friendly hospital.  Being baby friendly means that the hospital follows 10 steps established by the World Health Organization/Unicef to promote breastfeeding.  We have only one baby friendly hospital in Utah, the University of Utah Medical Center.  I did an internet search, and found out that Ecuador as 141 baby friendly hospitals, while in the whole United States there are only 25!  That really says something about both Ecuador and the US, with a small country like Ecuador light years ahead of the US. 
   We were busy this past week, but this week will be even busier.  We have two health fairs planned, and a group will be going out every day to test kids in the community for anemia.  I get to go to the maternity and pediatric hospitals. More of Ecuador to come!

Playing nutrition games with the kids at the Centro de Salud

Myself, Sondra and Casey at the health fair (We are all instructors)

Providing labor support at the maternity hospital

With the bombaderos (firemen)