Chile: Show and Tell

When we first walked into the unit on Saturday, I was a little surprised to see the condition of the unit. The walls were dirty, the paint was peeling and the floors were a mess. But today when we walked into the CCU it had undergone a transformation. The hospital workers had been up most of the night painting the walls, bringing in beds and putting new sheets and pillows on them. It was beautiful.

We spent a few more hours training and then helped get the CCU ready for the opening ceremonies. At 3 PM the CCU was opened and it seemed that most people were pleased with the results. In particular, Dr. Berr, a Professor of Cardiology at the University of Chile Teaching Hospital in Santiago, who began the heart program in Punta Arenas, was impressed with the equipment that had been donated and installed. He began a cardiac program at Punta Arenas 15 years ago when everyone told him that it was impossible. Against all odds, he recently performed the first open heart surgery in Punta Arenas. I had the opportunity to speak with him at length and he kept saying that we don’t realize what kind of impact this CCU will have on the whole region. Rob Busby, our lead engineer, showed him all the features of the monitors and the central station. He was especially excited about the telemetry monitoring system, which he did not know was being installed. His comments made the whole team feel great about what we had done.

After a few newspaper and television interviews, we were done—well, almost. We still had one midnight dinner to get through, which turned out to be a wonderful time.