Visita a un Hospital Publico

On Tuesday, we took a "field trip" to the largest public hospital in the region. A hospital administrator told us that they receive nearly 1000 new patients a day. It was by far the worst experience I have had since I arrived here in the DR.

Almost the entire first floor of the hospital is open to the outside. Water dips from the outside into the common areas of the hospital and trash is built up in what I assume were intended to be aesthetic plant beds. The shrubs are dead from the numerous coke and beer cans that have piled there instead. The areas that aren't open may or may not have air conditioning - most of them don't and rely on ventilation from the open doors to other areas of the hospital. Even the trauma/ER have sparse air. I think that there may have been AC units in there, but the number of people that crowd the halls - patients, visitors, and staff alike - make the air more humid and oppressive than even the most sweltering Florida day. The trauma wards are overflowing with people that lay dying on unsanitized beds without sheets. People bleed through their bandages in the hallway as they await medical care and blood is splattered on the walls and mixed into the water and dirt that lines the floors. The smell of death and decay lingers in the hallways and wafts through the wards with the smell of vomit and spilled morphine.

The upper levels of the hospital are only marginally better. The floors are still caked with wet mud, and the walls sweat with heat. Once again, not everywhere has AC. Patients share rooms with at least 6 others and their innumerable visitors. Most of these beds have sheets , thanks to the family members who bring them. Otherwise, I am convinced that the hospital can't supply bed linens. Janitors closets are wide open and the already filthy mops are exposed to more dirt and disease. The possibility of hospital acquired infections is high as I am certain that the virulence has reached new heights.

Security at the hospital is essentially absent. Mom's walk with the newborns through the halls without matching bracelets and all the wards are accessible to the public without a visitor checkpoint.

When we left they told us to all but bathe in hand sanitizer. I wonder why?

Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos so my description of the hospital will have to suffice. I knew before we arrived in this country that the health care left something to be desired - I had no idea it would be this bad! It really was sickening and saddening the way health care is administered here. I guess that is the price the citizens pay for socialized health care in a poor country.