First things first: Friday night after my last post Raniyah and I went does to the kitchen to get our Pops Chocolate Brownie ice cream from the freezer, only to find it stolen. Tears. Sadness. Oh the woes of sharing a communal kitchen. Don’t worry, they’ve been checking the security footage for approximately 5 days now trying to find the culprit… we will see if anything comes to fruition with that haha.
Weekend
Raniyah, Jhalak, and me on our afternoon stroll.
We had a slow weekend in San Jose with a visit from our friends staying in Escazu, including a trip to the market, a visit to the Jade Museum, eating traditional chorreadas at La Tortillería, a walk through nearby parks on a sunny afternoon, and experiencing La Estación for Dos Piños ice cream. (photo alert!)
GMI takes on the Jade museum (this pic taken after 3 hrs of exploration).
Week (+ road trip!)
Apotecario plato del dia!
On Monday, Jhalak and I went with a field engineer to Hospital Calderon Guardia for preventative maintenance on Hill-Rom smart beds and a GE anesthesia machine. This looks like cleaning the machines thoroughly, ensuring all the buttons are working as expected, calibrating, and doing system checks to ensure proper flow rates and no leaks. Monday lunch was the best chicken I’ve had in my life @ Apotecario and din din was a pizza night with the roomies (Pizza Hut again obviously). (photo alert!)
Me w/ the anesthesia machine in my surgery room scrubs !
Tuesday began with a road trip (!) to Siquirres with two field engineers and Jhalak. Siquirres is in the Limon province on the Caribbean side, so I was very excited to see more of the country, especially for the whole week. Here we’ve been to a variety of medical centers in a variety of sizes for preventative and corrective maintenance on beds, anesthesia machines, fetal monitors, and more. (photo alert!) It feels like a new device every day, so there isn’t much independence in the job quite yet. On the positive side, there have been plenty of opportunities for me to use Spanish, both in speaking with my Meditek coworkers and helping to translate about how the medical equipment functions for my GMI teammate. We’ve enjoyed local food here with the famous ~Rice and Beans~ but with Caribbean flavor (aka made w coconut! yum!!), guacamole, and are looking forward to experiencing more on the coast this weekend in Puerto Viejo!
Banana runners in Limon province
Thursday on our way to a remote clinic we got to see multiple pineapple and banana plantations, and watch the processing of bananas to export. There are ‘runners’ who pull the bananas for miles to the processing plant where they are cleaned and sorted before exportation. (photo alert!) I have learned a bit about the public healthcare system in Costa Rica (called the Caja) since being here though which was been really interesting. Public healthcare is free here, and part of the taxes people pay based on their annual income goes towards the Caja and then whenever they need anything, the service is free at the hospital or clinic. This also goes for those who are unemployed… even if they can’t pay a percentage to the Caja they will be able to receive healthcare at the public medical centers free of charge. This means healthcare + prescription medications will always have no out-of-pocket cost to the patient.The catch? Wait times can be extremely long, dragging on for multiple years at times, which is why the private healthcare system in Costa Rica isn’t doing too bad for itself even with the much increased costs and fees. As far as I understand it, the largest under the Caja are hospitals, then CAIS’s, then clinicas, then EBAIS’s, which are typically small clinics with only one of each machine (if even) in very remote locations. When we went to the EBAIS in La Perla on Thursday we worked on a fetal monitor, only to realize it was the only fetal monitor in the whole clinic (case in point!).
Playa Puerto Viejo!
Today was the last day at CAIS (the medical center in Siquirres) before our coworkers went back to San Jose and we hopped on a bus for Limon, then on to Puerto Viejo. Upon arrival we grabbed a very late lunch then checked in before hitting the beaches along the coast and relaxing with a book in the sand. (photo alert!) I’m looking forward to checking out some national parks and beaches this weekend, while also getting some R&R after a busy week of work!
Chao!