St. Jude’s Hospital, Traveling to Castries, and The Health Ministry

Yesterday morning we woke up early and got ready to tour St. Jude’s hospital in Vieux Fort with George Lee, the hospital’s volunteer coordinator.  He picked us up at 8:15 at the guest house and we drove about five minutes to the hospital.  The actual hospital burned down in 2009 due to faulty wiring, so for the past four years, the Saint Lucians have been running the hospital from an unused track stadium.  The hospital is located in the hallway running underneath the bleachers and has two wings, one on each side of the track.  The setup is actually quite impressive, given the circumstances.  They have a triage center, a couple emergency rooms, several operating rooms, and an entire half of one wing dedicated to specialty areas such as gynecology, acupuncture, optometry, dentistry, etc.  Although many walls are made of plywood partitions, it is obvious that the hospital staff has made the most out of a bad situation.  In fact, just this year they were rated the best hospital in Saint Lucia, despite the fact that there is a large, fully functioning hospital in Castries!

We spent the morning touring the hospital and speaking to several employees.  We got to know the head of nursing, Nurse Charles, who was in her fifties and didn’t look a day over 35.  That seems to be a trend here: the people are gorgeous and healthy, and they age so beautifully! It  must be something in the water.  They also dress very nicely and don’t seem to be bothered one bit by the heat, while I wilt after five minutes outside.  I’m jealous! Anyway, we also spoke to Cherianna Philip, the Assistant Nursing Director about the challenges facing the hospital and the progress on construction of the new St. Jude’s hospital.  We are going to tour the construction site with her next Thursday! Finally, we spoke to a Renee Thompson, who is a Jamaican finishing her thesis on nutrition at St. Jude’s about how we can help her create materials for the hospital.

Following our tour of the hospital, George Lee took us to a small hotel with a restaurant named Kimatrai.  We at on a large veranda overlooking the bay and the fish market and had the most wonderful food.  I have been trying to eat local dishes, so for lunch I had the Mahi-mahi special and some amazing grapefruit juice.  We lingered over dinner, and realized the time too late.  We still had to go to the store to put minutes on our cell phones before meeting Cuthy at the guest house to go to Castries!  We ended up being over half an hour late to meet Cuthy, but the wonderful man was so patient with us.  We loaded up all our belongings in his tiny van and squeezed in for the one and a half hour drive to Castries.

On the way to Castries we stopped at a look out called Mandele Lookout Point to take pictures.  It was gorgeous! It over looked the town of Dennery and the Frigate Island Nature Reserve.  There was also a charming little building for tourists.  At least at first glance it seemed charming, then you realized they charged people $1 to go to the bathroom!  Good thing I didn’t need to go.  We finished the drive, and after getting stuck in some traffic and getting a bit lost, we finally found where we are staying.  The Summer’s Inn is GORGEOUS beyond all expectations and the owners, Janna and Richardson Leon and their two daughters, Kijahna and Rianna are so accommodating and friendly.  It is located about 20 minutes away from Castries in Beausejour, Gros Islet.  Griffin and I are sharing a room again.  We have two full sized beds, a couch, a dresser, a TV, a kitchenette, a dining table, a full shower, and our own personal veranda! There is also a lovely veranda at the front of the house with a beautiful view.  We went to the super market last night and got a few provisions and snacks and then we rested.  Unfortunately, I had to stay up late finishing homework for my other classes.

Today was another productive day.  I woke up at 7 AM and went out to have a fresh grapefruit and some guava mango juice out on the front veranda.  It was such a lovely way to start my day.  We had to be at the Health Ministry at 9 AM, so Richardson drove us and Janna to the bus stop so she could teach us how to ride the bus into Castries.  Using the bus isn’t too confusing, but remembering where the stops are and how to get to the Ministry once you’re off the bus is difficult.  Also there is a good amount of walking to the bus stops both ways.  Unfortunately, I wore my black flats today and they gave me terrible blisters on my Achilles tendon in the first few blocks.  Ouch!  I guess they weren’t broken in enough.  I had bandaids but they wouldn’t stay put.  I plan on wearing flip flops and changing into nicer shoes for the rest of the trip.

Once we reached the Health Ministry we spent the morning talking to our liaison Lisa Hunte Michelle, who is the nutritionist there.  Just like everyone else we’ve worked with on the island, Lisa is so friendly and accommodating.  They are all so grateful to have any help we can provide for them. It really makes me feel like we’re doing good work, which makes the work more enjoyable.  We also spoke to Sharon, the Chief Medical Officer, and Natasha Felix, the Head of the Education Ministry about what we could do to help them.  They had a lot of great ideas and were very passionate about their work.  We are going to do research and present evidence-based procedures for physical exercise and healthy diet to be implemented in the preschools in Saint Lucia.  They will use our findings to conduct workshops for the preschool teachers in order to include regimented physical activity and a healthier diet into the preschools here.  Finally, we met with Mary Anne and Melva, two of Lisa’s staff who travel to clinics and schools to talk about nutrition.  We will be touring schools with them several times in the coming days in order to get an idea of what they do and what they school and health systems are like.  We will also be getting information to include in our presentations. 

After that, we went to lunch with Lisa at a place called Auberge Seraphine.  I had another tasty local meal, this time with chicken, white sweet potatoes, and juice with passion fruit, grapefruit, orange, and lime (YUM! The juice here rocks, guys).  After lunch we decided that we weren’t brave enough to travel on the bus by ourselves, so we took a cab back to the apartments and had some free time.  I took a nap and did homework.  Then Griffin and I had dinner before everyone gathered in our room to work on figuring out our schedule for the week and outlining our presentation.  The good news of the day: There will be a maid coming in Thursday who has offered to do some laundry for us for $10! Sold!  I have to get some more homework done now, but I’ll write again soon. Miss you all!