I am enjoying life in Karakol, despite a painfully slow internet connection at the local internet cafe and a problem with water neccesitating my using an outhouse.
There's a conference in town, and so all of the hotels are booked. We are renting out a private home of a lovely Kyrgyz woman with a beautiful garden and an even more beautiful view of the mountains. In addition to be able to go up to fruit and berry trees and bushes and eat cherries and raspberries greedily straight from the trees/bushes, when she serves us tea it's with homemade breads, jams, and even honey. Heaven! Way better than hotel gruel, and I hear the main hotel is rather gnarly.
Today was another maternity hospital. This one was way nicer than the last, which isn't saying much. No heat other than plug-in space heaters, no hot water except for rooms where have attached a propane tank and hose to hook it into the existing sinks. By Western standards, I'm horrified. But they're still better off than many other places in the world.
One of the surveys I was looking at had a blank for the bit of data about whether forceps or a vacuum were used to assist with delivery. According to our staff member, there's only one OB in the entire hospital trained to use forceps.
They had a number of hand-made signs that were meant to educate women about proper breastfeeding practices and the various family planning methods. I have some great drawings that someone did of some of the methods that I'll post when I get back. They did have an error in the exclusive breastfeeding guidance (they said 4-6 months, where it should be 6 months), which I pointed out to our expert doing an assessment of the facility. I guess I did learn something in those 9 years at CCP! Ha ha.
Tomorrow is Saturday but we're still going to be working. I guess I'll hope for a nice hike in the mountains some other time.....
Gotta go! Everyone's done at the cafe so I can't hold the gang up.
There's a conference in town, and so all of the hotels are booked. We are renting out a private home of a lovely Kyrgyz woman with a beautiful garden and an even more beautiful view of the mountains. In addition to be able to go up to fruit and berry trees and bushes and eat cherries and raspberries greedily straight from the trees/bushes, when she serves us tea it's with homemade breads, jams, and even honey. Heaven! Way better than hotel gruel, and I hear the main hotel is rather gnarly.
Today was another maternity hospital. This one was way nicer than the last, which isn't saying much. No heat other than plug-in space heaters, no hot water except for rooms where have attached a propane tank and hose to hook it into the existing sinks. By Western standards, I'm horrified. But they're still better off than many other places in the world.
One of the surveys I was looking at had a blank for the bit of data about whether forceps or a vacuum were used to assist with delivery. According to our staff member, there's only one OB in the entire hospital trained to use forceps.
They had a number of hand-made signs that were meant to educate women about proper breastfeeding practices and the various family planning methods. I have some great drawings that someone did of some of the methods that I'll post when I get back. They did have an error in the exclusive breastfeeding guidance (they said 4-6 months, where it should be 6 months), which I pointed out to our expert doing an assessment of the facility. I guess I did learn something in those 9 years at CCP! Ha ha.
Tomorrow is Saturday but we're still going to be working. I guess I'll hope for a nice hike in the mountains some other time.....
Gotta go! Everyone's done at the cafe so I can't hold the gang up.
1 comment:
Yes 6 months it is. Vidya would be so proud! What's surprising is that you actually learned something about child health while at CCP! :-)
Please let us know if there's any evidence of implant use anywhere out there!
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