IPSL Reflection #2

Kate Ackert

Reflection Journal

March 2^nd, 2015

Topic #2

                  For this assignment, we had to find an article that relates to the agency we are volunteering with and that also relates to the role that they play in the community. I am volunteering with the Ministry of Public Health at the Oskar Jandl hospital, and I have chosen the article “Dying for Change”. The publication was compiled by the World Health Organization. “Dying for Change” tells the tale of those who have struggled with poverty and health their entire lives. It recaps events that these people have experienced, such as going without clean water, inhumane treatment in hospitals and clinics, and the pangs of hunger that they experience on a daily basis. I have been working at the hospital for a week now. I have helped with a program for the elderly and with the house visits to the poorer areas of the Galápagos. I would like to expand more about the house visits, and to compare and contrast what I have seen to some of the case studies the article talks about.

In it’s opening words, the article says, “Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (Dying for Change Online). People often view being healthy as having a properly functioning body. However, after only a week with the hospital, I see that health is so much more than that. Part of what I have been doing here aligns with WHO’s definition of health. Because the island is so small, everybody knows each other. This means that the hospital knows exactly who is sick. On my first day there, they explained to me how they keep track of the patients here. In the head administrator’s office, there are three big foam boards with sections of the island on them. The houses are all mapped out, and there are thumbtacks all over the place. Each color thumbtack represents a different illness or health issue. It was really interesting to see the spread of what health issues plagued what areas. For example, we went to the barrio Manzanillo to talk to people into coming to the hospital for their high blood pressure and depression issues. Before we left, I was looking at the board where Manzanillo is located. It was abundant with green thumbtacks, because green designates at-risk for unstable housing, water cleanliness, etc. Manzanillo is one of the poorer areas of the Galapagos, so that is why they have those types of problems. In some of the nicer areas, there were not as many thumbtacks, but some that designated at-risk pregnancies or diabetes patients.

For the final paper, I would like to focus on health care systems in a developing world and talk about how possibly the hospital in San Cristobal could adapt to become more efficient and use my possible solutions to overcome problems. This connects directly to the mission of the service agency and the type of work I am doing. What we aim to do on these house calls is to educate them and to provide the best health care away from the hospital that we can. This connects to me because I am using the knowledge that I have to educate administrators, physicians, and nurses on what public health in a developed world is like. As we talked about in the IPSL meeting last week, I am not here to go into the hospital and flip it upside down with my American views and customs into something that would be completely inappropriate for life on an island. I am here to learn, observe, and see if there are any changes to the health care system that I would be able to suggest in my paper.