Meidcal Donations Arrive at JFK Hospital

Today the GIK arrived at JFK. I walked over to the receiving area with David Eddy and Caleb so that I could take pictures. I thought the shipment would be completed in the morning but it kept coming all day. When I was in the outpatient clinic taking pictures of the primary care team I heard more rumbling down the road and saw three big Liberian military trucks come in with the GIK. The boxes of stuff arriving was heading to the store room in JFK and also to the Ministry of Health's warehouse. One of the forklifts caring the boxes actually got stuck on its way to the store room.

I spent most of the day wondering around to the different locations on campus where our volunteers were working. In the large hallway of the JFK the nurse educators were holding a class for what seemed to be about 80 people. At one point Christella was also there taking a break from weighing patients at the HIV clinic. Tuesdays and Thursdays JFK holds an HIV/AIDs clinic.

From there I went back to primary care to take more pictures of Dr.Polifka working with patients and med students. A med student had come to him with an EKG and he was showing them how to read it.

Then I wandered over to pediatrics to see Faye. A couple of minutes after I arrived the power went out and it was really dark in the room because there are no windows in the room. However, Faye is always prepared so she pulled out two flashlights, shortly after the lights did come back on.

I went back to the physical therapy clinic and found Julia and Josephine working with a little girl who suffered some paralysis in her arm when she had meningitis. The girl seemed to be about 3 but wasn't talking, she just sort of cried out. Julia and Josephine were trying to get her to reach for a rattle but Julia soon noticed the girl would not respond to the sound of the rattle just the sight of it. She thought she might have some hearing loss so she went behind her and clapped really loudly twice but the child did not even flinch. The little girl had hearing loss so she wasn't reaching once the object was out of her sight line.

I guess Tuesday wasn't as exciting as other days. I just walked around visiting all the volunteers and taking pictures. I also interviewed Sam for some quotes. He is a really nice guy with a really interesting story. He wasn't always a physical therapist. He was once a physician's assistant and volunteered to become a physical therapist when Handicap International came into train physical therapists. Because of the war many people suffered amputations due to trauma and now the biggest cause is motor vehicle accidents so the need for physical therapists to get people using prosthetics correctly and training people to walk again is huge. Sam and Josephine are the only two physical therapists at JFK and they see patients suffering from paralysis due to stroke, amputees, and children with club feet and anyone else with a debilitating issue.

I hope to have something about the PT clinic written soon. It has been a fascinating place to watch people work because it is all about how you move.

--Marisol Euceda