Across the Globe 2015

February is always an exciting time around here as we prepare for our first team of the season.  We love that February is filled with our friends from Across the Globe of Jacksonville, Florida.  This year we welcomed ATG founders Doug & Lauren Senecal along with volunteers from several different churches in the Jacksonville area, creating a large medical team who started the year out with a bang! They brought medicines and supplies that would serve the hospital not only for their brigades but for much of the remaining year!

Medical brigades were held in Rio Viejo and several outlying villages during the week.  On Wednesday the weather changed suddenly bringing heavy rains and causing creeks and rivers to rise. Due to the bad weather we, were not able to hike to the last village on the schedule, but this incredible team did not let that stop them! They found another big project they could tackle right here at the Jungle Hospital.  They came up with the idea of relocating the entire pharmacy to another room! Their idea combined the pharmacy, back-up medicine/supply storage, and the laboratory all into one air-conditioned space. We wondered if it would actually work, but after two nights of working until midnight, it was all finished, and worked beautifully.  We were able to turn the former pharmacy into a large triage room that accommodates a large physical therapy table to serve us better when we have visiting practitioners! We now have a room large enough for patients to receive nebulizations, injections, physical therapy, and it still leaves more than enough space for triage and pre-clinic.  The former laboratory and medicine/supply storage room took on a third role as the pharmacy. It really was an amazing transformation.

During the rain storm they had team members working everywhere!  Some were counting pills and taking an inventory of the entire pharmacy, some were packing up baby gift bags, and some were preparing hygiene packs for patients and organizing baby clothes.  Thank you ATG team for serving the people of the Cuenca Cangrejal, and for serving the Jungle Hospital as well.  You brought hard work and creative ideas with you and we are so very grateful for them both!  We love starting the year off right with ATG each February!