Day 10: Enhancing neonatal care

We had another successful day at Roosevelt. Upon arriving to our work area in the old ICU we turned on the incubator we repaired yesterday and tested its ability to both heat up, stay and change temperatures. It was successful on all accounts!

It successfully heated up to the desired 37 degrees Celcius

We then continued working on two patient monitors from the infant neonatal critical care unit. We were soon ready to return to the unit and test the monitors. This critical care unit seems to be one of the busiest places in the hospital, partially because it is a relatively small unit, and because there always seem to be a dozen doctors running around and mothers anxiously awaiting news. A resident assisted us in testing the monitors on a patient, an adorable baby named Daniel, who was almost ready to go home. The monitors proved to detect his heart rate, SPO2 levels and print ECG patterns correctly. We gave the unit 2 more usable monitors!

One of the monitors was almost 30 years old.

The two monitors we fixed, on a cart ready to use!

Checking the readings of the monitor.

After returning the repaired monitors we returned the repaired incubator as well. Returning equipment after fixing it is extremely rewarding. Our help is appreciated immensely and there is no doubt that the equipment we were asked to fix (and was completely out of use) will help Roosevelt provide to care to the countless number of patients seeking care daily. We spent the rest the day at Roosevelt working on some ECGs we were just given- unfortunately they are missing essential parts and are hard to troubleshoot, but we are doing our best.
Before we left we had to say goodbye to the fabulous Jose who has been our point person throughout the trip, he has been an integral part of making us feel welcome here and helping us whenever any problems arise. We also met with Dr. Mejia about the potential of UVG entering the hospital to work us. Last summer we had meetings between the deans of UVG, Directors of Roosevelt, myself and the mechatronics students interested in working at Roosevelt. By the end of our trip they had been granted full access to the hospital. Since the change of security at Roosevelt they have been unable to reenter the hospital. Dr. Mejia confirmed that, due to the tough political times in Guatemala, granting the students access to help in Roosevelt will be difficult and will have to be postponed for at least a couple of months. Politically, Guatemala is in a state of flux, as I have mentioned in previous posts. In fact, tomorrow, we have been told not to go to Roosevelt at all.

The notice about the protests.

There will be mass protests all along the routes to the hospital, in the capital and at the hospital (a public institution that suffered due to government corruption). The number of warnings we received tonight about the protests and the fact that everyone insisted we stay at the hotel tomorrow has been sobering. We are disappointed we will be unable to return to Roosevelt tomorrow, we are close to repairing an ECG, but understand that we must put safety first. We will keep everyone updated tomorrow. To read more about what is currently going on in Guatemala: Read this.