At the health center in Antigua Ocotepeque we get shipments of medicine only four times every year. If we run out of anything before then, well, the people who have walked all the way to see the doctor are just out of luck. That’s how it was when I first got here but we just got a shipment of medicine a couple weeks ago. Before getting the shipment the doctor and nurses go through the pharmacy to see what they need and how much of it to request. They always have to request more than they actually need because they never get as much as they request. When the shipment came in we didn’t get a lot of the medicine we had requested and we also got a lot of medicine we hadn’t requested and didn’t need. In addition to the medicine on the list, our health center also received various donations from the US and while this seems like a great idea, it probably didn’t work out as well as was hoped. One of the extra items we got was Zythromax. It is a great antibiotic and we received cases and cases of it. Once we opened the boxes, however, we discovered that it expired in just one week. All of it. During that week we took it up to the aldeas to people who were sick and the doctor prescribed it to anyone who needed it and came into the clinic, but we barely made a dent in all that we had. It’s really unfortunate that it expired so quickly because it’s a drug we would never otherwise have access to.
We also got several boxes of Icy Hot patches. While they also have the potential to be helpful, the patches we received have no way of being attached to the skin because they are meant to be placed in leg, arm, or back braces so they can be applied to the area in pain at the same time that the area is being supported by the brace. Not only do we not have access to any braces, but the instructions to use and apply the patch are in English. I was able to explain how to use it, but health centers where no one speaks English may not be explaining correctly. You have to make sure you put a certain side against the skin and unless you read English, you would have no way of knowing.
We have a lot of people coming into the health center right now because word has gotten around that we got in a new shipment of medicine, but we’ll see how long it lasts and how health care continues in the next couple of months until we get the next one.
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3 comments:
Amazing the differences between getting meds here-- and there. We miss you and send lots of hugs from all of us. Keep up the fantastic work!!! :) Loran and Co.
There are a lot of differences for certain -- but I think that we might have some expired zithromax in our medicine cabinet at home too! It sounds like you are really embracing the community -- they are really fortunate to have you. Good luck with the next supply run. Thinking of you. Kristin and the Seattle Gang
Hi Sarah,
Reading your post about expired Zythromax made me wonder if I should tell you about a situation I knew of at a clinic in the USA where two practitioners, who each did volunteer work in two different third world countries, would periodically clean out the expired meds from the clinic to take with them to save lives in their volunteer work. The clinic had to create a policy where an administrator would clean out the expired meds and document everything appropriately. I don't know if the administrator would then let the practitioners take the expired meds or not, but I do know that the practitioners wanted to use them. It sounds like the clinic that you work at is more strict about expiration dates than the places where these two practitioners were volunteering.
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