Dias Dos y Tres en Rio Negro y Dia Cuatro en Rio Verde

So the way the program is run, everybody is split into a group of two people, with whom you do all of the daily rotations with. My partner was a girl named Jasmine(Jazz) and our first assignment was in Rio Negro. Rio Negro was a smaller town located between Baños and Puyo, about a 45 minute bus ride from my homestay in Puyo.
OHH NO THEY ARE BURNING THE FOREST...not its just that humid and warm...YIKES!

The towns along the highway that winds around the sides of the mountains consistently looks the same.
Below are typical sights of the towns located right off the highway in the hilly Oriente.


The one street of Rio Negro:

We spent a total of two days in the Subcentro de Salud in Rio Negro, a clinic associated with the socialized health care system present in Ecuador, supported by the Correa government.

The first day was long, but gave me a good foundation on the operation of such clinics. The doctor, was in his first year of practice, and as mandated by the government of Ecuador, all first year doctors must spend a year in a rural clinic, before they can move on to their desired placement or even apply for another placement.


The docs name is Eduardo Zea and he was very nice and stopped to explain things as patient after patient came in (we saw a total of 32 patients in about 6 hours that first day). He was clearly stressed by the situation, because many patients did not have confidence in him, because he was new, or because most of the patients, which were women, didn't feel comfortable with a male doctor. He tried his best and showed a deal of care for the patients. Day two was very much the same, although fewer patients came in and in the afternoon, the doc had to make a house visit to a kid who had been in contact with two confirmed swine flu cases and was showing similar symptoms. I believe he turned out not to have swine flu, but he said it would be better that we didn't go so as to not expose us to a possible case. That morning I was not feeling great about the way the program was run and did not feel like I was going to be able to help many people, which probably played a role in me helping the crab cross the road.


The next day we went to another Subcentro de Salud in Rio Verde another small town just 15 minutes past Rio Negro, with a similar setup, but a slightly larger town.

We arrived at our scheduled eight o'clock time, but the doctor was not there and didn't show up for over an hour becasue she was out supposedly getting a box of supplies for the clinic.

While we were waiting, I chatted and kicked a ball around with two kids who were sitting outside the clinic. After a little bit, they had to leave and so I attempted, briefly and with some success, to talk to two patients who were waiting about why they were at the clinic, what they thought about the health care system, and what they thought needed fixing before the doctor arrived. One lady told me that there was no consistancy in the docs schedule, and that they couldn't always depend on the services, but that she was greatful for the basic free health care she received from the governement. After lunch we decided to leave as the clinic was dead and I was getting tired of spending time just sitting in the clinic. I felt that I had learned as much as I could from this clinic and that I had a good basis to use as a comparison to the larger clinics and hospitals found in the larger towns and cities.