I have been fortunate enough to serve in 14 embassies with the U.S. Department of State for periods of time ranging from one month to three years (Ghana, Guinea, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, Mexico, Uzbekistan, Hungary, Russia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Romania, Pakistan and Czech Republic). I am often asked which of these was my favorite posting, a question impossible to answer. In truth, each has given me memories I cherish, friendships I continue to enjoy and experiences I value. But, if pushed to name one post that was a pivotal experience for me, it would be Kabul, Afghanistan.
I spent 14 months in Kabul in 2003-04 and it was, I think, the best time to be there. The Afghan people were full of hope and promise, the Taliban were weakened and had retreated, and much needed money and skilled personnel were flowing into the country to rebuild the economy and improve living conditions. I was there when the girls were permitted to return to school. On the first day of the term, the streets were full of nicely groomed girls holding hands, smiling and walking briskly toward their classes. I remember a profusion of pink backpacks as I sat in the rear seat of the embassy vehicle, sobbing at the sight.
The city of Kabul was relatively safe then, and I was allowed to meet civilian medical colleagues from other missions and military medical colleagues from the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), both at secure locations and even at approved restaurants in town. Truly, one of the great delights of my career was the opportunity to collaborate with so many American and foreign military medical professionals. I came out of that experience with an unshakeable regard for the military and utmost respect for the sacrifices they make for us.
U.S. Aid for International Development (USAID) made a commitment to build primary care clinics throughout Afghanistan so that physicians, midwives and community health educators could begin to pull the health system up from the ruin that years of war had created. I was invited to attend the opening of the first such clinic at a village some distance from Kabul.
The citizens of the little village were proud of their new clinic and the medical personnel the government had sent to staff it. I was proud of the U.S. government for making this dream a reality, and honored to be there to witness the villagers’ delight.
After the dedication speeches, the village imam came to ask the USAID representative for another favor. “The children need a school,” he said, through an interpreter. “May we have a place for our children to learn and books to teach them?” I was really struck by this old man and his humble request. Isn’t that what we all want for our children—good health and a future? Is there really anything else that matters, regardless of where on earth you live?
For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.
Showing posts with label Mexico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mexico. Show all posts
04 November 2010
15 April 2010
The perfect health care system? I haven’t found it.
Even though I am an expat living in Europe, I am bombarded daily with news of the U.S. health care reform debate that seems to have our country polarized. I have seen so many other health care systems around the world that my viewpoint is probably a bit skewed from what it would be if I still practiced in America.
If there is a perfect system, I haven’t found it. My experiences vary from Guinea and Afghanistan, where there was basically no real health care available, to Mexico, where the range was from excellent to terrible, to the Czech Republic, where the care is on a par with what I would expect in the United States. I am referring to the standard of care, not the process of financing it. How health care is financed—fee for service, socialized, self-pay, etc.—is a wholly different matter, although it is a fact that if someone isn’t paying for health care in a country, it isn’t going to exist.
In Conakry, Guinea, there is one government-run hospital. The hospital is surrounded by a high wall with an iron gate. A patient who comes to the hospital must first pay an entrance fee of a few francs. No francs, no entrance—regardless of the seriousness of the illness or injury. Once inside, the patient will be seen by a physician and, perhaps, be assigned to a bed. The bed will have no sheets, no mattress. If the patient needs these things, the family must bring them. Likewise, if the patient requires any medication or supplies, including surgical supplies, the family must go to a local pharmacy and purchase them and bring them back to the hospital. The hospital carries no medications and no supplies. Not even a Band-Aid.
The patient will be charged a daily rate to cover the “overhead” of the hospital. If he can’t pay each and every day, he will be removed from the hospital. The same is true for the physician’s fee. Physicians must be paid in advance or they will not render services, as they are not paid by the government. This is also true of private clinics and medical offices available throughout the city. Either pay up front or forfeit services. This was the system that was in place when I left Guinea in 2003. If it has changed, it has only been for the worse, as the country has spiraled downward into instability.
Afghanistan’s medical system was decimated by 25 years of war. While I was posted to Kabul, various NGOs, as well as the Ministry of Health, were trying to put together rudimentary care, at least in the capital. My most poignant memory is of one day in 2004 when I learned that 17 mothers or babies had died during childbirth at a maternity hospital in Kabul. These lives were lost because there were not enough personnel at the hospital to take care of the delivering mothers. There was no system of organization at that time and, for whatever reason, most medical personnel assigned to work that day didn’t come. There were no phone lines, and mobile phones were still a rarity, so staff couldn’t alert the hospital that they wouldn’t be there and the hospital couldn’t call in replacements. At that time, Afghanistan had the highest maternal/child mortality rate in the world, so, because of a poor communication system, those 17 lives added to the dismal statistics.
I left Afghanistan in 2004 and spent a couple of months in Sierra Leone, which ended a 10-year civil war in 2001. They, too, had been stripped of a medical system that was insufficient to begin with. In fact, the only hospital in Freetown, the capital, was vacant and shuttered. The government simply had no money for medical care. A few physicians had trickled back into the country after the war and opened offices, but they were only able to provide basic services. Medications and supplies had to be imported, and sources were not reliable. As in Guinea and Afghanistan, severe lack of medical care was a bitter fact of life. I do not know actual statistics, but I feel confident in saying there are many more people in the world who have little or no modern medical care available to them than there are those who do and, while I agree the American system needs tweaking, I’m still very grateful we have it.
For Reflections on Nursing Leadership, published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.
If there is a perfect system, I haven’t found it. My experiences vary from Guinea and Afghanistan, where there was basically no real health care available, to Mexico, where the range was from excellent to terrible, to the Czech Republic, where the care is on a par with what I would expect in the United States. I am referring to the standard of care, not the process of financing it. How health care is financed—fee for service, socialized, self-pay, etc.—is a wholly different matter, although it is a fact that if someone isn’t paying for health care in a country, it isn’t going to exist.
In Conakry, Guinea, there is one government-run hospital. The hospital is surrounded by a high wall with an iron gate. A patient who comes to the hospital must first pay an entrance fee of a few francs. No francs, no entrance—regardless of the seriousness of the illness or injury. Once inside, the patient will be seen by a physician and, perhaps, be assigned to a bed. The bed will have no sheets, no mattress. If the patient needs these things, the family must bring them. Likewise, if the patient requires any medication or supplies, including surgical supplies, the family must go to a local pharmacy and purchase them and bring them back to the hospital. The hospital carries no medications and no supplies. Not even a Band-Aid.
The patient will be charged a daily rate to cover the “overhead” of the hospital. If he can’t pay each and every day, he will be removed from the hospital. The same is true for the physician’s fee. Physicians must be paid in advance or they will not render services, as they are not paid by the government. This is also true of private clinics and medical offices available throughout the city. Either pay up front or forfeit services. This was the system that was in place when I left Guinea in 2003. If it has changed, it has only been for the worse, as the country has spiraled downward into instability.
Afghanistan’s medical system was decimated by 25 years of war. While I was posted to Kabul, various NGOs, as well as the Ministry of Health, were trying to put together rudimentary care, at least in the capital. My most poignant memory is of one day in 2004 when I learned that 17 mothers or babies had died during childbirth at a maternity hospital in Kabul. These lives were lost because there were not enough personnel at the hospital to take care of the delivering mothers. There was no system of organization at that time and, for whatever reason, most medical personnel assigned to work that day didn’t come. There were no phone lines, and mobile phones were still a rarity, so staff couldn’t alert the hospital that they wouldn’t be there and the hospital couldn’t call in replacements. At that time, Afghanistan had the highest maternal/child mortality rate in the world, so, because of a poor communication system, those 17 lives added to the dismal statistics.
I left Afghanistan in 2004 and spent a couple of months in Sierra Leone, which ended a 10-year civil war in 2001. They, too, had been stripped of a medical system that was insufficient to begin with. In fact, the only hospital in Freetown, the capital, was vacant and shuttered. The government simply had no money for medical care. A few physicians had trickled back into the country after the war and opened offices, but they were only able to provide basic services. Medications and supplies had to be imported, and sources were not reliable. As in Guinea and Afghanistan, severe lack of medical care was a bitter fact of life. I do not know actual statistics, but I feel confident in saying there are many more people in the world who have little or no modern medical care available to them than there are those who do and, while I agree the American system needs tweaking, I’m still very grateful we have it.
For Reflections on Nursing Leadership, published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.
25 November 2009
Prologue to my blog
The advertisement in the nursing journal said, “Deliver primary care to U.S. government employees working in embassies overseas.” That was enough to catch my attention! I was a 40-something single mother with a great nurse practitioner job in Biloxi, Mississippi, but I had a nagging suspicion that there was more to be had if I looked for it. Soon, I was going through the long and frustrating process of applying for the position of foreign-service health practitioner with the U.S. Department of State.
That was 10 years ago and, in subsequent years, I have enjoyed long assignments in Ghana, Guinea, Afghanistan and Pakistan with shorter tours to Mexico, Russia, Hungary, Uzbekistan, Rwanda, Kosovo and Honduras. I am assigned—with consideration of my preference—to a U.S. embassy community to deliver patient care in the medical unit, usually as the sole provider, but sometimes with a State Department physician. The patient load is the run-of-the-mill primary care stuff with some interesting twists along the way. Some are location-specific, such as parasites, malaria, or “acid” bug burns. Some are scary acute-care problems (MIs, cancers and orthopedic nightmares) that my clinic diagnoses, stabilizes—using local resources, when available—and transfers to a medevac center or to tertiary care in the United States.
It isn’t all direct patient care. I am responsible for testing embassy water quality, evaluating food sanitation practices of embassy kitchens, scrutinizing local public health issues that might affect our embassy population, emergency preparedness, health education of the embassy staff and a variety of issues that are in some way related to the health and well being of embassy personnel. It is never boring and I marvel at the range of knowledge I have acquired since taking this job.
The off-work possibilities are boundless. I’ve spent New Year’s Eve in Red Square, ridden horseback to Egypt’s Great Pyramids, climbed through a bamboo forest to photograph mountain gorillas and been a lazy bum on some of the most beautiful, and isolated, beaches in the world.
I’ve met amazing people at every location and learned that, no matter the region or the language, we are all more alike than we are different. I have also seen the poverty, lack of education and poor health care the majority of the world suffers. It devastates me, but I have been able to offer small assistance by volunteering at a children’s center or supporting a local hospice.
Of course, there are some negatives to this employment. While I have attended the major events in my grown children’s lives, such as weddings, I’ve missed just about all of the daily life events. Webcams and Skype phone calls help my seven grandsons remember my face and voice between visits home, but I miss not being with them more often. My youngest daughter traveled with me until 2003, when she returned to the United States for university. Now, I live and travel unaccompanied and sometimes feel out of touch with the U.S. culture, and my family and friends. Still, I know how truly fortunate I have been to reside and work in the world at-large. It isn’t for everyone but it has been a dream-come-true for me.
I recently completed a three-year assignment in Pakistan, an amazing experience. After returning to Washington, D.C. for two months of language training, I’ve now moved to my new assignment, Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. The past 10 years have taken me to mostly rough, medically underserved locations. For the next three years, I will be in the heart of Europe, and I wonder what that assignment will hold for me. In this blog, I will share my discoveries and adventures and reflect on past ones. I hope you’ll join me.
For Reflections on Nursing Leadership, published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International
That was 10 years ago and, in subsequent years, I have enjoyed long assignments in Ghana, Guinea, Afghanistan and Pakistan with shorter tours to Mexico, Russia, Hungary, Uzbekistan, Rwanda, Kosovo and Honduras. I am assigned—with consideration of my preference—to a U.S. embassy community to deliver patient care in the medical unit, usually as the sole provider, but sometimes with a State Department physician. The patient load is the run-of-the-mill primary care stuff with some interesting twists along the way. Some are location-specific, such as parasites, malaria, or “acid” bug burns. Some are scary acute-care problems (MIs, cancers and orthopedic nightmares) that my clinic diagnoses, stabilizes—using local resources, when available—and transfers to a medevac center or to tertiary care in the United States.
It isn’t all direct patient care. I am responsible for testing embassy water quality, evaluating food sanitation practices of embassy kitchens, scrutinizing local public health issues that might affect our embassy population, emergency preparedness, health education of the embassy staff and a variety of issues that are in some way related to the health and well being of embassy personnel. It is never boring and I marvel at the range of knowledge I have acquired since taking this job.
The off-work possibilities are boundless. I’ve spent New Year’s Eve in Red Square, ridden horseback to Egypt’s Great Pyramids, climbed through a bamboo forest to photograph mountain gorillas and been a lazy bum on some of the most beautiful, and isolated, beaches in the world.
I’ve met amazing people at every location and learned that, no matter the region or the language, we are all more alike than we are different. I have also seen the poverty, lack of education and poor health care the majority of the world suffers. It devastates me, but I have been able to offer small assistance by volunteering at a children’s center or supporting a local hospice.
Of course, there are some negatives to this employment. While I have attended the major events in my grown children’s lives, such as weddings, I’ve missed just about all of the daily life events. Webcams and Skype phone calls help my seven grandsons remember my face and voice between visits home, but I miss not being with them more often. My youngest daughter traveled with me until 2003, when she returned to the United States for university. Now, I live and travel unaccompanied and sometimes feel out of touch with the U.S. culture, and my family and friends. Still, I know how truly fortunate I have been to reside and work in the world at-large. It isn’t for everyone but it has been a dream-come-true for me.
I recently completed a three-year assignment in Pakistan, an amazing experience. After returning to Washington, D.C. for two months of language training, I’ve now moved to my new assignment, Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. The past 10 years have taken me to mostly rough, medically underserved locations. For the next three years, I will be in the heart of Europe, and I wonder what that assignment will hold for me. In this blog, I will share my discoveries and adventures and reflect on past ones. I hope you’ll join me.
For Reflections on Nursing Leadership, published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International
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