Women in the neighborhood and how they view the health situation

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in the neighborhood chatting with a group of women from the neighborhood that Norma (one of the community leaders) was able to pull together. The topic was health problems they saw in the neighborhood, to find out what they see as the biggest problem and what solution THEY see.

To set the stage: there is a free, state run clinic the neighborhood. There are many all over La Plata, 44 to be exact, and 9 public hospitals. In theory within each clinic there is a whole array of publicly provided programs, involving anything from maternal care to medications to condoms. The clinic in Villa Alba is right on the boarder with the neighborhood next to it, Villa Montoro.

So what are their comments/complaints? The biggest was that the neighborhood clinic doesn´t have ANY resources. There is one doctor, who works from 9 until 3. There are two nurses who work from 8 in the morning until 8 at night, there is NO ONE present over night (even though on the county web site it says there is). There is a pediatrian, which for some reason that no one would give me NO ONE goes to, they all pay the bus fair and the 45 minute bus ride to go down town to a place called Casa Cuna. There is no pyschologist, gynocologist or social worker, as their are in surrounding clinics. When you go to the clinic, and are faced with something more complicated than taking your blood pressure or tempurature, they call an ambulance. If they don´t have the medicine that you need, they will either give a slip to go buy it yourself, call you an ambulance or you can get your own right to the hospital (also 45 minutes away). Many of the people in the neighborhood, knowing they are just going to be sent to the hospital, simply call the ambulance themselves. It usually takes 30 to 45 minutes for the ambulance to get there….if it can get there at all, when it rains the dirt roads in the neighborhood are impasable. Sometimes the ambulance dispature doesn´t answer the phone when it is called, so the people in the neighborhood have taken to calling the police and having them directly call the ambulance. So if you cough in the neighborhood, people call the police. Ridiculous. RIDICULOUS! How much money is the state spending on police calls and ambulances, when it could just provide better service and better coverage at the local clinic?

The other major problem besides not have a doctor, 24 hour on call, stalked with medications, or having condoms avaliable, is the distance for many people in the neighborhood. The neighborhood keeps growing and for some people it is over 20 blocks, walking, with a sick child and maybe another one riding piggy back, while the other one stays home….and hopefully STAYS HOME…to get to the clinic where they are just going to call the ambulance…and maybe it won´t get there on time. They were telling stories about children dying at the clinic because there wasn´t anyone at the clinic or enough staff. The distant part of neighborhood actually boarders on the county over, Belisso, and they are a close and well run clinic, but people from the county of La Plata are turned away at the door because they are not from Belisso. Same with any attempts to go to other better run clinics closer than the hospital.

So much for accessable, free, public health care.

What are they looking for? That the programs that are offered, actually function. That all the medicines are in stock (including birth control pills, which are legal, but they run out all the time) and give out free condoms. That like other clinics in the area, they have a psychologist, gynocologist and social worker. They there is at least a nurse there 24 hours a day, and a doctor for more than 6 hours a day (people start lining up at 6 in the morning). And in their biggest, most far fetched fantasies…that they put another clinic in the neighborhood, not so far from the rapidly expanding part, full of young mothers and families.

Is that asking too much? Not if I, the women of the neighborhood and local NGO´s (and maybe a lawyer or two thrown in there) have anything to say about it. Now how do we go about helping them to get this, but in reality teaching them how to fight for what they deserve?