A new side of Gugs!

Today we got moved to a different part of Gugulethu clinic and surprisingly it was very interesting. I think I learned and did more in the 2 hours I was there than the past two days at the clinic. We got to sit in on a counseling session where one of the counselors was educating a client recently diagnosed with TB how to do treatment. It was pretty interesting because I didn't know a lot about tb and I didn't realized it was linked with HIV so strongly. I felt kind of uncomfortable being in the room with the patient with TB but the conselors opened all the windows and gave us masks. It was crazy how they didn't even wear masks themselves! On our 4th day there we finally got a tour of the whole clinic. We went to the pharmacy, trauma, maternity, and adolescent clinics. We saw lots of nice tea rooms :) my favorite was the maternity ward. We got to talk to a women who works for mothers to mother. This is an organization that provides support and education for pregnant women with and without HIV. It was shocking because this woman was HIV positive and had 3 children all HIV negative because she knew the right things to do to decrease the likelihood of her child having HIV. She educated us on the different measures  as well like what medicines to take during and after pregnancy and even during childbirth. It is reassuring to know that there are success stories that women living with HIV can model and learn from. Also in the maternity ward we got to see the labor and delivery room. The room consisted of 8 beds total, 4 for labor and 4 for delivery. Pretty much if you were ready to give birth, you could be doing it with 3 other women inthe room. The bad thing is the number of beds. If a women was read to give birth and all beds were taken, she would have to wait or go to another clinic. Also they only give the pain medicine to women with complications. Everyone else has a natural painful birth. The best part of the day was seeing the newborn baby that was only 6 hours old! The crazy part about it is that the newborn and his mom were getting ready to leave the hospital! After 6 hours! That's one of the big differences with the US is that newborns and their mothers can stay in the hospital for at least 24 hours in the US. Things are so different in this health clinic, but everything works for them just fine. Sometimes I even find myself criticizing the US hospitals. For example, in the Gugulethu clinic people rarely wear gloves. They wash their hands but no gloves. When I volunteered at Carle hospital everyone wore gloves and used hand sanitizer coming in and out of any room. It was almost excessive. I remember thinking I was wasting rubber gloves when I would have to take them off to get the blood pressure machine and throw them away to get a new pair. It's not like I touched anything between the room and the blood pressure machine, but that was the policy. I've learned that there is no definite right way to do things. The Gugulethu clinic could be cleaner and safer, but given the funding and facilities that they have I think they are doing a great job. It's not their mission to have the cleanest and most advanced facility. Like the facility manager told us on our first day, it is the clinic's mission to provide the citizens of Gugulethu township with medicine, education, and support to live healthy and prosperous lifestyles and thus far they have been very successful.