Shalena maybe you ought to read your first post and maybe take a class in English because there was nothing but criticism on your part.
I also don't have an issue with the fact that the hospitals are poorly funded, equipped and that the staffers are poorly paid.
My issue is your blatant assumption that they ALL don't care based on your limited observations.
I also never recommended any expat should go there only stated my experience.
Finally, it would really be nice if you read my posts as opposed to making foolish assumptions.
Dear everyone that can read and comprehend English....this was my first post in this thread. Those who have a college education please point out to me the "nothing but crtisicm" part.
So sorry to hear about your father. The situation of healthcare in the country is the giant elephant in the room that noone talks about. Money rules, sad to say, and my country United States, is at the total other end of the pole....don't get me started on that.
My deepest condolences
SHALENA
Dear Everyone again that can read and comprehend English, here is my second post. Please point out to me where I state or make an assumption that
none of the Doctors care. In addition to that, I will put in bold print some of my statements that suggest otherwise. Statments that showed that I understood how pressed they are....
Chip has a family member who works in a public hospital so his narratives are somewhat scewed. There are some staff in public hospitals who give very good treatment this is true. They are severely understaffed and under equipped. Rarely do they have the supplies to do the task at hand and are sometimes not pais for a month or two.
All of this however is no excuse for the lack of human caring and abundance of ignorance even when presented with truth. I spent a week sleeping on the floor in Cabral y Baez with my son's 80 something year old great-grandmother when her husband was dying. The family wanted me there as I am a nurse in the US. The docs were super nice to me but other staff seemed angry and bitter. The resident doc came in to put a catheter in his penis for urine collection. We had bought the supplies. I had purchased sterilized gloves, yet this physician took a pair of gloves out of his pocket. I stopped him, telling him that I had sterilized gloves for him (in the US, placing a urinary catheter is a sterile procedure). He told me, "I have my own. No problem" and I had to put my hand on his and say "Yes, problem". I explained to him that the bladder is sterile and that that is where his catheter would end up, and placing a catheter without sterilized technique could cause a serious infection in this already immuno-suppressed 90 year old.
( I dis not use the words technique or suppressed because I don't know those words in Spanish but I explained it the best I could). He accepted this and was very nice and used the sterile gloves, I had to stop him again to clean the head of the penis before sticking the catheter in. This person is probably already a doc now on his own.
That is not the worse part. Not even 2 hours later he had to pit a catheter in another elderly patient in the room and did NOTHING that I had explained to him before. NOTHING
Not having supplies or being understaffed is no use for ignorance and bad treatment. Your father should've been treated immediately or at least with your promise of payment. The caring has gone. One of my midwife instructors spent 2 weeks in Santiago public hospital with a group of 7 Midwives and students. The docs lived them because they had an ease up on their workload but twice the group had to leave early due to done if the students not being able to handle the treatment of the women. Some were slapped when they were out of control with pain. They are on sheetless beds left alone except for every 2 hours a doc cones around with at least 5 others (residents and med students) and opens their legs forcefully, checking their cervixes in front of 8 other women and the 5 men standing there, talking about them like they aren't there, ignoring their cries for help, closing their legs and moving on to the next one not even washing their hands in between. They saw a Haitian deliver a stillbirth in a bathroom, the hospital staff took her baby away and left her on the floor in blood and feces. While the Midwives prayed over her, the staff then returned with a wheelchair and took her to a room with a metal table, had her climb up bleeding and in pain and proceeded to tug on her placenta, one of the midwife students said that not one staff person said a word to the patient and she looked like a deer in headlights.
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing is an excuse for this type of treatment.
We cannot say anything, we sign forms for our Midwife students that state that we understand that we are not there to judge the hospital staff and we are not there to change their ways of doing things, we are there to be a blessing to the patients. And we do not need to make enemies of these doctors.
But when will ONE doctor stand up and say that this is wrong. When will 1 treat a patient with compassion, as a human and not a disease. When will 1 doctor hold a scared woman's hand? I have had patients that I hope to never see again in my life! Patients that have left me seething with anger, yet they never knew.
Sad part is....that is the DR....until sine people in power change, nothing will. And I wouldn't hold my breath for it
Chip, I am not a school teacher, nor a professor. Please refer to the "PRIVATE SCHOOLS" thread if there are some more classes that you need to take. I do not take offense to your post only because it is your post....I take offense to the fact that this is an INFORMATIVE site for people who live, want to live, are going to live, or just love the DR in general. And YOU and others on here telling unsuspecting, naive expats, that they should go to public hospitals makes me livid. L-I-V-I-D. Don't get mad now because you actually get to
SEE what I am saying instead of reading it....don't get mad beuse you look like an idiot that sent his wife to hve surgery at a hospital whose OR cabinets barely hold more than a few sterile gloves.
YES, PEOPLE, THAT WASTHE HOSPITAL CHIP SO GLOWINGLY RECOMMENDS AS GOOD ENOUGH FOR HIM AND HIS FAMILY. WATCHMY SLIDESHOW AND MAKE YOUR OWN CHOICE.
Keep listening to people on here and you'll get yoursel killed.
never said the Docs were all bad....but who teaches them? #1 killer of Women in childbirth inthe Dominican Republic??? INFECTION!!!!
What is the #1 way to prevent infection....HANDWASHING!!
Yet, people on this site recommend these hospitals to others who have no idea....shame on you. DOMINICANSDON'T EVEN RECOMMEND THESE HOSPITALS, THEY GO THERE BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO CHOICE! THEY TAKE THEIR CHANCES!
Please YouTube "Cabral y Baez", Chip's precious family hospital....my slideshow looks like an episode of the Smurfs compared to whats on there, and they're ALL DOMINICANS POSTING
The End
SHALENA
Criss......I deserve una fria, no curses
