Believe it or not Piura has a NICU!

We got to tour a Santa Rosa Hospital today, it is a bigger hospital in Piura and the only hospital in Piura that excepts insurance. However, it is still only a level 1-level 2 hospital. Any patients that have severe health problems or complications need to be transported to a Lima hospital to receive level 3 care. Lima is an hour and a half plane ride and most people end up taking a bus because it is to expensive to fly. There was one really sad case of an infant that had many congenital disorders including down-syndromes, cardiac, and respiratory problems. The mom had taken the infant to Lima to seek some treatment, but could not afford to stay in Lima and pay for the food. So she returned to Piura receiving some treatment for the child, but not nearly to the extend that she needed. So now the child is staying in the Piura hospital receiving not enough care and either waiting to die or waiting for adequate money to return to Lima to receive the treatments. And because of the major health problems the child will need to receive treatment for the rest of her life. It seriously broke my heart to see this baby, knowing it probably had no future. It continues to amaze me at the lack of resources this country has and how they get by. American hospitals are huge when compared to Piura and have more than 10 times the patients. This being a bigger hospital has 22 beds total for their adult unit, at the hospital I work at we have 22+ beds on oncology, 40+ beds on cardiac, 22+ beds on neuro, 22+ beds on GI, 22 beds in the ICU, etc… Below is a picture of the ICU at this hospital it had two beds total.

When we were touring the surgical unit there was a C-section that was going on.  We were talking to the head nurse when someone came up behind me and handed me a mask, gown, footies, and gloves and rambled off something in Spanish that I did not understand a work of. But next thing I knew I was standing next to the neonatologist with the newborn in the assessment room. Similar to the United States they actually conduct a whole head to toe assessment and monitor the child’s respirations with respiratory equipment near by. They also give Hep B and Vitamin K right away, which I was impressed by.  The neonatologist had me come back to a separate assessment room and let me hold the infant and be a part of the assessment. For all C-sections they have a neonatologist present and he included me in everything. Seriously best thing that happened to me since I was down here! He even let me hold the precious little newborn!

After I completed the assessment with the neonatologist then we moved the new baby back to the NICU where they stay for two hours for observation before they go to the see the mother. The NICU here was nothing like back home they had one incubator and then just had a few cribs along the walls. This would not be the place for woman with high risk pregnancies to deliver, they would be much better off in a Lima hospital. After we safely delivered the baby to NICU I talked to the doctor for a little bit and we was like I could tell you want to work with babies you just have that expression and that is why I asked you to come back. Apparently even my body language sends these messages out now. My fellow MU nurses joined me back in the NICU and we took this picture below.

Then our big treat for the day was that we got to go to the supermarket and we found a little ice cream stand on the way and got ice cream. When walking around the actually city of Piura we have to have staff come with us. So it was just us four girls walking downtown with our three body guards. Our evening was spent doing yoga and working on our project that actually has a little stressed out right now.