So today was our first plunge into the health system. I felt kinda jittery last night because I didn't really know what I was looking for, well I mean I had an idea of what we were looking for, I just didn't know how to do it. We even met as a group last night, trying to strategize on how we were to approach the task but we ended up deciding to just go with it when we get there. When we got there, we were shown around by Ate Lorna, who was their nurse. We then got to talk to her a bit about the TB program and how that works. Afterwards, she was busy so we went around and talked to some other people. My first attempt was with this new mother. I sat down beside her and I asked her what she went to the RHU for. I then asked her how old her child was, and whether she waited long. But then she saw me writing her answers on my notebook and that kind of made it very awkward so I just let her leave. My second attempt was with the DOH nurse. I asked her when she started working in the RHU and how is it so far. I then turned to the MedTech. She was packing her stuff and I offered to help but she said she was okay so I just stood there and asked a few questions. I found out that the simple lab tests like sputum tests were still sent to EVRMC because they really had no equipment there. But then she's been there since March therefore she was well, useless for 2 months already? Eventually, she too was busy so I tried looking for the others and they were in the tent where the doctor was.
It was pretty crowded so I decided to wander and I found a tent which was apparently the source of all the singing we heard in the RHU. I went in to see what was up and I saw a choir of kids having a singing lesson. I went back out to the entrance of the tent to ask what was going on and Sir Nick told me that this was in partnership with Save the Children. They had been doing these performance workshops even before Yolanda though. It was just nice that even though bad things have happened, they don't let that get in the way of their love for the arts. I guess it is a way of helping the children get through this tough time and still allow them to be children.
Because we chatted with him, we were asked to follow them to the new location of the RHU. It was two blocks away from the previous location and once we got there, it was apparently home to a lot of government offices as well. They were in the midst of brainstorming for the floor plan of the place and so we joined them. That was the first time we really felt the tension between the nurse and the doctor. The nurse didn't really give high regard for the doctor and just dismissed her needs. After that, we proposed the floor plan to her and she said it was pretty good, made some revisions, and then sent us off to lunch.
Ma'am Dudj was really good because she got to invite the MedTech, Ate Regine, to join us for lunch even though they've just met like 30 minutes beforehand. We went to this place called Acebedo and the food was pretty good. We just had a fun lunch, bonding and talking with each other. We don't normally get to do that in school because we're part of different cliques but it was nice to kind of reconcile for this immersion experience. After lunch, we reported back to Super Lorna and we helped her clear the space for her office. I mean, she let us give the doctor one corner but she got one whole section.... That was kind of mean and also disrespectful because technically the MHO is higher than the PHN. That was my first experience with a shadow leader. I always see the leader as going a little overboard, being a little too controlling, and not the other way around. This is so peculiar to me because the leader should be strong, not weak.
The day went by and we didn't really gather much information from them. We didn't really understand much about the health system. I guess, well for me, the concept of "hiya" just took over. I was always thinking of whether this was a question that I can ask and then end up not asking it instead. Everything I learned from DS went down the drain that day. So after the town meeting, we went back to one of the rooms and met as a group. We then had a refocussing and tried to think of questions that we could ask the people when we got back tomorrow. Doc Sio went in and helped us with it as well, giving us feedback and more questions we didn't really think to ask. Then we got to talking about the project as a whole and Doc advised us to sincerely listen because what we want to achieve at the end of this process is a document that is in touch with the reality of Palo but is also valid based on theory. This paper is not supposed to solve all of their problems. It merely serves as a guide for what they can do to build back better. Doc Sio then said, "It is difficult to say 'I give up' but it is tempting to say 'I can.'" I remembered what Doc and I talked about during my Sci 10 orals way back. We talked about how we, the youth, are so idealistic about the world. We feel like we can change everything. We think to orselves of how obvious the problems were and how easy the solutions are. But I told him then that it was so hard to make people understand, to make people who can do something about it see it the way we see it. I told him that I was powerless. I wanted to save the world but that was too big a bite for me. Then he said, well you don't have to do it alone. Your job is to make people want to fight for change too so that it would be easier to make the change. I think we were so tempted to say I can immediately after we found out about Super Lorna that we forgot about how some things just are. We can't really do anything about it. We have to know the limits of the change we can exact. There is a fine line between idealistic and crazy. I hope I'm still in idealistic.
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