Happy Birthday Kara Johnson!

Had to give a little shout out to one of my followers, Kara, since I am not there to wish her Happy Birthday in person! Hope you have a great birthday! Eat some cake and ice cream for me! If you have already looked at my pictures, check out the link again because I have added some more including pictures of where I am living and the Rehab Center that this post is about.

So yesterday morning, Sarah and I went to el Centro de Rehabilitation, which is the physical therapy place here in Monte Cristi. The country is split up into provinces and there is a province called Monte Cristi, but we are in a town called Monte Cristi as well, which is a small portion of the province. This rehab center is the only one in the province so they provide a lot of therapy needs to surrounding people. There are 2 other provinces that it serves as well, one as far as an hour away (the border town of Haiti called Dajabon). Needless to say, they stay pretty busy and it is a valuable resource here. This is 1 of 19 rehab centers in the DR. In Versailles alone, we have 3-4 physical therapy places, so just imagine how rare this is and for a small town like Monte Cristi to have one is amazing. Dr. Garcia is the president of this center and has worked hard for 2 years to start this center. As you can probably already tell he is well known and does a lot to serve his community.

When I came down in 2007, the rehab center was in a small house and just starting up. Now it is in a large building that was constructed with the help from a church in Spain. And there are plans to build a 2nd floor which will consist of offices for the staff and a large event center for weddings, birthdays, etc because something like this doesn't exist here.

Currently they offer electrical stimulation, ultrasound, and physical therapy services. They have some equipment such as a bike, a treadmill like thing and bars that people use to learn to walk again. They also have a kids gym which has a mat and exercise balls to do physical therapy for children with problems. You can see these in my pictures. There is a doctor that comes from Santiago (2 hours away) on Mondays and Wednesdays to see the new patients and a psychologist as well. They also have a main physical therapist and for now a Korean nurse who has been helping and the new German student will be working there as well.

Dr. Garcia explained yesterday that they have currently started social security here in the DR, so if patients have this, it covers their PT. I guess like our Medicare. If they don't have this, it is private pay, $800 pesos to see the doctor and $400 pesos for therapy (34-35 pesos = 1 dollar)
However, there is a social worker and they have a sliding scale payment plan for those that can't afford it. One other payment option is that if you are written a prescription by a doctor from the public hospital, there is no charge because the employees of the rehab center are paid by the public hospital.

So we toured this, talked with Dr. Garcia for a while about the information I just shared and then played with a little girl while her grandfather was getting treatment.

We walked back to the orphanage from the Rehab center, probably about a 10-15 minute walk but it had to be 95 degrees with 100% humidity! Wow was it hot!

After lunch, I worked on the health camp curriculum again, typing up what we had come up with on Monday. Spent about 2 hours doing this until my brain hurt and then went to play with the kids out on the playground!

After dinner, we didn't have any activities planned so we just hung out with the kids again for about an hour. Later we played Apples to Apples up in our rooms (the leaders/interns)

There are several team leaders/long term volunteers here. Coco is the country director who has been here for 5 years now. She does a little bit of everything. Julie is here for 2 years, already been here one and she is in charge of the English Institute where they teach English to 5-8th graders in the community. Heather is here for 1.5 years and arrived in May. She is working on a Spanish literacy program because many children and adults can't read here. Christine is a 1.5 year leader here until May and she works on the public education in the local school systems, developing a curriculum for volunteers to teach. Bryson is a 2 year volunteer, here for another year, and he does media stuff for OO. Vivian is a 3 month intern and she is teaching English at the Institute. Sharon is a two year leader who was here for 6 months and returns this Saturday to start her 2 years. And then there is me, the Health Corps leader!

Well, time for a little siesta before heading out to Batey Juliana with Dr. Garcia, probably to give more shots!