October 9th, 2021 by Rachel Somers

Clinic days had a nice routine to them.  My roommate Heidy and I would get picked up by Martha in one of the clinic’s bright orange vans.  If I was the first to notice Martha’s arrival, sometimes I would just announce it with the word “Naranja!” (“Orange” in Spanish).  Martha would always greet us with a her bright smile and some morning chat on our way to the clinic.  Martha spent years living in the USA, but is now back living on Roatán, and working as an administrative assistant at Clinica Esperanza.

We would arrive at the clinic at 8 AM, and always a full waiting area, inside and out.  The clinic is set up where the pediatric, diabetic and OB/Gyn offices are upstairs, and the general medicine, pharmacy and laboratory are on the lower level.  Each floor has its own indoor waiting room with covered porches outside for overflow.  Mornings are always the busiest, especially Mondays.  Mid-week might be a bit slower if any cruise ships had arrived, and cruise ships mean work!  During my three weeks I spent time in every area except the lab and the OB/Gyn office.  Oh!  How could I forget?!  The lower level also houses their dental room and the treatment room.  That’s right, the clinic also provides dental care!  All they need now is an eye doctor, and they’ll really have things covered.   (Any optometrists/ophthalmologists looking to relocate to a tropical island, I’m sure they’ll be glad to have you!)

According to Miss Peggy, the most common health concerns for adults are hypertension, diabetes and gastritis.  For children, they are diarrhea/dehydration, skin issues (rashes, etc) and respiratory issues.  From the time I spent there I can appreciate the truth of that.  I took more high blood pressure readings in those three weeks than I’ve ever done in a similar time frame, with multiple patients having readings in the 200s for their systolic pressures.  Even women in their 30s often had systolic pressures well over 160.  Severely hypertensive patients would be brought to the doctors’ attention, and would get IV medications in the treatment room to help get their pressure down to a slightly less shocking number.  And as for diabetes…  I think I’ll go into that more at a later date, but the majority of diabetic patients had blood sugar levels ranging from 200-500.  Diabetes isn’t poorly controlled; it runs rampant.

I didn’t spend as much time in pediatrics, but when I was there I found that for the children, cough and cold like symptoms were very frequent.  We also had several with GI complaints, including concern for parasites.   If they had fevers, we would treat them with some acetaminophen and make sure there was space for them to wait in the air conditioned waiting room, rather than outside where the heat index could be over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

This octopus mural portrays the clinic well! A very busy octopus, cleaning teeth, treating patients, and giving medications.

The afternoons tended to be quieter, at least from a nurse’s perspective, although the doctors and the pharmacy were usually busy right up until the end.  But there was always something to do, whether it was taking care of patients in the treatment room, helping out in pharmacy, or sorting through donations.  The end of the day fell between 4 and 5 pm, when Martha and the orange van were ready to take us home.

On a completely different note, I think one of the greatest works of fiction is that roosters crow when the sun rises.  Perhaps it’s my sheltered, semi-rural upbringing that led me to believe such a thing, but spending anytime where chickens roam freely will quickly disprove that.  Roosters will crow whenever they want to, day or night.  Let’s just say that I was grateful to have an air conditioner in my room for the noise cancelling aspect as well as the cooling one.