Week One team arrives at the hospital

/in /by CAMTA

As the first bus arrives at the Hospital Padre Carollo, the team enters a jam packed lobby full of potential patients waiting to be screened.  As the CAMTA team filters through the crowd while receiving a standing ovation; the applause and cheers echoes through the building.  The red carpet greeting is very different than the type normally pictured; the glamorous gowns and fancy decorations are replaced with a crowd of people with genuine looks of gratitude, appreciation and hope.  The energy in the room is simply indescribable and almost overwhelming.

As the locals continue to line up and wait to to be seen as potential surgical patients, the CAMTA team proceed to their new temporary wards.

The entire team bands together to move furniture and bags of equipment as they customize their temporary areas for their needs. 

The team starts to go through the medical equipment to verify that all of the equipment that has traveled with the team has not been damaged during the journey. 

The condition and expiry dates of the medication and medical supplies that have traveled with the team as well as the supplies left behind from the 2014 Mission are checked and counted to ensure that it will accommodate the scheduled procedures for the week.

Christine, Shaun, Rayanne, Rae, and Karla prepare operating room instruments for sterilization by wrapping, labeling and taping indicators to the instruments.  With everyone lending a helping hand today, the surgical set will be ready for use in the O.R. first thing tomorrow morning.

As the clinic opens, Matthew and Barb gather the clinic team together to explain the patient flow through the clinic and to point out where the designated pediatric, adult, physio, GP, and nursing areas will be.

Over the years CAMTA has been fortunate in being able to incur the help of local volunteers.  Barb assigns three volunteers from the local Calagio Nanor school to act as translators in the clinic where they will help to ensure all of the patient information is correct.
A young pediatric patient gets her picture taken as part of the health history part of the clinic.  This helps to properly identify the patients in the busy clinic and to avoid any incidents especially since many patients have common names.
Krystle and Joanne (two of CAMTA's physiotherapists) are joined by five local physiotherapists for the first time; they will be volunteering some of their time to help their fellow Ecuadorians.  Jorge (far left) is a previous CAMTA patient and comes to the clinic each year now to encourage prospective patients.
Joanne demonstrates some of the post operation exercises while Consuelo and Adam translate to some of the patients who have been scheduled to have hip surgery early this week.
Sydnie, Peter, Peggy and Jane begin to organize gift bags that will be given to the young pediatric patients after their surgery.