Chile: Training

Ray Schmidt

The installation in Punta Arenas, Chile slowed down a bit today since the hospital administration had to make some decisions about the location of the telemetry system. The original plan was to have it on the first floor but when they fully understood the capabilities of the telemetry system, they opted to place it elsewhere.

Like any hospital, the decision had to work its way through the channels before the final location was determined. This process took most of the morning, but after lunch we were installing the telemetry antennae.

Pam began training the nurses and doctors today with Teresa interpreting. I always enjoy this part of the project because it always brings about an air of excitement. The hospital staff begins to realize that this equipment belongs to them. It’s interesting to watch some of the nurses that really get into the training and then begin to show the other nurses how to operate the monitors.

One of my standards for success on each project is to find 2 or 3 nurses that really excelled at the training. If I have that, I know that a “train the trainer” type program will continue at the hospital.

The level of experience and knowledge displayed by the nurses was very high. They were asking about some of the sophisticated features on the monitors—features we normally don’t cover in our training. But they were very knowledgeable and eager to learn every aspect of the monitors and central stations.

The central station issue still hasn’t been resolved. We blew the power supply the other day and though we were able to find one in town, it did not quite work properly. So I had one sent out today from California and it should arrive on Friday. We were able to put all the monitors and the telemetry system on a single central station, so the second one will be used as a backup.

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March, 1

It’s not the end of the world . . .

We made it to Punta Arenas! We arrived at 9 AM, checked into our hotel, had breakfast and made it to the hospital by 11 AM where we were greeted by the hospital staff. We had thought about grabbing a quick nap before going to the hospital, but there were a number of hospital personnel waiting to greet us. So, after sleeping only a few hours on the plane trip, we headed right to the hospital.

The Dr. Lautaro Navarro Avaria Hospital in Puntas Arenas is the primary public hospital for the region. Puntas Arenas is isolated from the capital, Santiago, with no roads and ice packs that make it impossible to get to the capital without traveling through Argentina by car, or flying out of the region by plane, or boarding a ship. If a person needs critical and immediate medical care, it costs $40,000 to get him from PA to Santiago by an emergency plane. It is the southernmost city in the world. It’s not the end of the world, but you can almost see it from here—Antarctica is only a few hours away by plane.

Heart disease is very prevalent in this region because of the poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, and other factors and the hospital is in need of medical equipment for a Cardiac Care Unit (CCU). That’s where we come in. By partnering with the Rotary Clubs in Los Gatos and Puntas Arenas, Assist International is able to provide 19 patient monitors, a central station, a telemetry monitoring system, two ventilators, one cardiac ultrasound and 12 pallets of miscellaneous medical supplies.

So today we began the installation and made excellent progress. We had lots of help from the hospital personnel and we were able to unpack everything and get almost everything assembled. My son, Christian, did a great job as well. I figured he would be so tired that he wouldn’t be much help, but I was wrong. He worked relentlessly assembling roll stands and pitching in wherever he could until we were done for the day.

But our day didn’t end there. We returned to the hotel, slept a couple of hours and then headed to a dinner hosted by the Puntas Arenas Rotary Club. They eat very late here. We arrived for dinner around 10 PM and didn’t finish until after midnight.

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February 28th,

Leaving on a Jet Plane…eventually

Today a medical team from Assist International departed for Puntas Arenas, Chile, but not without a few glitches.

The medical team included Pam Finger, a registered nurse from the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Teresa Reyna, Director, Program and Operations, Guest Services, from Stanford Hospitals, Rob Busby and Duane Kellogg, medical engineers from Philips Medical Systems, my 12-year-old son, Christian, and me. Rob and Duane flew out separately and were to meet us in Miami. The rest of us flew out of San Francisco, but our flight was delayed. The flight was first delayed for 15 minutes and then 30 minutes. Then a tire had to be repaired and that delayed the flight another hour. At 2:00 PM they boarded us on the plane (90 minutes late). At 2:45 we were told that we could exit the plane if we’d like because the tire repair still had not been completed. Finally, at 4:10 PM we departed and there was no way we would make our Miami to Santiago, Chile flight.

We arrived in Miami only to find out that the crew for the Miami to Santiago flight never showed up and so they delayed the flight until the next morning at 10:30 AM. That meant that Rob and Duane were also stranded in Miami. We made it our hotel around 2 AM and then returned to the airport around 9 AM for our flight to Santiago. We arrived in Santiago, Chile, around 10 PM and by the time we finished getting our visas, arranging flights for Punta Arenas, and driving to our hotel it was almost 2 AM.

The airline (which will go unmentioned) paid for us to stay in a 5-star hotel in downtown Santiago. We wanted to take advantage of this but, in what can only be called a cruel irony, we were able to stay in this plush, luxurious 5-star hotel for a mere two hours. We checked in at 2 AM, napped, showered and then left at 4 AM so that we could catch our 5:30 AM flight.

I must hand it to the team though. They were upbeat, positive and anxious to get to Puntas Arenas, in spite of all the hassles that we endured thus far. Nothing like traveling with a good team.