Zacamil

Today Mike, Blanca, Angela and Leighanne went to the Zacamil, the hospital where we will be volunteering for an orientation with one of the assistant director of nursing. We were given a tour of the hospital and introduced to several of the nursing supervisors for the different floors. They are were very gracious and said they were excited to have the help. The usual nurse to patient ratio is 1 nurse to 15-20 patients if the patients are somewhat stable. If they patients are intensive care, the ratio is one to four. Some of the nurses explained that they usually work 14 hour shifts and if the oncoming nurse doesn´t show up, they have to work for twenty four hours. We will be starting actual volunteer work next week. We hammered out the details of what we would be able to do as volunteers. They said they would appreciate help with bathing patients, changing positions, cleaning, working with the occupational therapists and other therapy units such as child therapy.