This week so far has been spent dealing with one very bitter little man, Monsieur D, who writes the bills that a patient needs for all diagnostic exams in the hospital. He has been refusing to do so unless patients pay upfront (i.e. bribe him). This has been causing problems for the nutrition program. The hospital director was supposed to have talked with Monsieur D at the beginning of the week, but today it was still the same old story. I can sympathize with him a little. The hospital is having financial difficulties which has resulted in many people, including Monsieur D, not being paid for several months. But if he’s still going to show up to work, he needs to do his job. He told me that the hospital director never talked to him. We argued and I told him I was going right then to talk with the hospital director, again. This scared him enough to write a bill “for today ONLY” for the little boy’s blood work. He gave me the bill for the labs, but today only is just not going to cut it. I went back to the director and little Monsieur D got in big trouble. I’m sure he’s not too happy with me, but he better be writing bills for us from now on. The former manager of the program told me that she had the same problem with this guy when she first got here. Guess he's trying to see what he can get away with.
The good thing that came out of this, other than the fact that I hope to not have any more problems with Monsieur D, is that I now know the process of getting laboratory tests done. This was my first time up to the 3rd floor. Located up there is the laboratory, dental clinic, the filariasis project lab, and the hospital radio station (that I didn’t even know existed and is apparently one of the most popular stations in Leogane!). I was rather impressed with the lab. There are 2 refrigerators, an incubator (that may or may not be working), 2 microscopes, and a centrifuge. (There was also a pile of old dusty broken microscopes and a centrifuge in the corder). There were a million people in the room, most of whom were students observing. Parked almost right in the middle of the room was one chair for the patient to sit in. I found the lack of privacy for the patient rather awkward, but I don’t think privacy is all that much of an issue here.
I’m essentially taking off the rest of the afternoon and all day tomorrow (Friday) to go hang out in
