Since starting work at the hospital it has become fairly difficult to find time to blog and then make it to the internet café to post. The café is about 10 min from my flat, they don’t open until 9:30 (we go to work about that time), and the power goes off everyday at 5pm for 15 min to an hour; hence the lack of posts since last Saturday.

This  week my group has been observing at Deenanath Hospital which is a very nice hospital here in Pune. They are funded through donations/trusts, and serve both wealthy and less well to do  families. The standard of care between Deenanat and Kamale Nehru definitely is different, but a single night stay in the pediatric ICU at Deenanath is ~700 Rs. while it is 5 Rs. at Kamale Nehru. This does make for a difference in the care given, but Kamale Nehur does a great job with the available resources. 

At Deenanath Hospital I spent some time in the Pediatric out patient clinic where I shadowed two amazing doctors. There were some interesting cases of ischemic hypoxia during child birth. The doctor demonstrated how the children were not meeting their neurological developmental milestones to us. Then I also went to the Emergency Department where I saw a few motor vehical accidents as well as a man who had HIV, but did not know because the family had decided not to tell him. I will address this more in depth in my next blog because it is something that sharply contrasts the US. 

We spent a lot of time working in slums this week, and today I finally took some water samples in two different slum areas. I have learned so much about what is really relevant for these people and interestingly enough it is not what you think it would be. 4million people live in Pune and 60% of them live in slums. There are around 600 slums in Pune, and around 570 of those have been recognized by Pune Cooperation, meaning that those people now own the land that they live on because they have been living there since before 2001. All of the recognized slums have water provided to them by Pune Cooperation, which means that the water for every house in Pune including 95% of the slums is all the same water. This makes my study a little less important, but I feel it is still relevant and here is why. Although the water is provided by the cooperation, people still store there water in jugs for at least one days duration sometimes more. Also the social workers expressed concern that the biggest issue facing the slum dwellers is not healthcare, or food, or water or even housing, but rather personal hygiene. There for the water has plenty of opportunity to become contaminated.

I took lots of pictures today of the people I surveyed and took samples from and then had them printed so that I can given the pictures to them. I will post the pictures tomorrow once I upload them onto my computer.

Yesterday I was extreamly ill and could barley get out of bed. I slept until 7am then again from 8-10:30 then again from 11:30-2pm then again from 4pm-7pm then again from midnight to 7am. Today I feel 99% better! Thank god for Norflox because I would still have ‘loose motions’ as they say here without it.

Be safe everyone in Colorado, I have heard about all of the tornados threatening our state these past few weeks. Scarry. Today here it rained, finally!! The monsoon was supposed to start the 7th of June and it has only rained two times this month....Crazy. SO send your rain our way because its stinkin hot here.

Talk to you later. Oh and comment! I like to hear you thoughts and thus far my dad is the sole participant.

Bye

The elders on my street hanging out around dinner time. They do this every night.

This is the post natal ward at Kamala Nehru Hospital.