Today is blog action day and the topic is food, hence I am spoilt for choice as to what to write about.
I could discuss all the food that I love here and how long the gratification lasts after consuming certain comfort food stuffs (for the record dumplings from the noodle shop are pretty high up the gratification scale lasting a good 7 hours at least and thats with out the garlic repeating).
Equally I could talk about all the food that I crave or have fantasies about, better still the welfare packages I have received from home (and Australia) that even reminded me of things I had forgotten to miss (dorset cereal, tim tams, peppermint tea, green & black Maya Gold chocolate - the list is endless).
There is at least a whole blog on cooking with just a wok and a skillet with no sharp knives at your disposal.
I could discuss the recent floods in Cambodia and the destroyed rice harvest and threatened food shortage. Or the malnourishment wing of the paediatric ward and the shock of seeing a severe marasmus infant. Or how you feed yourself on less than $2 a day (not very well but two thirds of Cambodians have no choice).
But I am going to keep it short, sweet, tenuously connected to food and of course medical.....
Every morning there is a hospital meeting where new patient admissions, deaths and any other current management problems are discussed. Occasionally something is brought up that reminds you why you attend these meetings, despite the hours of 'ot mean' - 'don't have' conversations you have had to sit through.
Last Friday was one of those days, there had been a death on one of the wards and as my new VA translated the conversation I realized that going back to basics was going to need to be a lot more basic than I had bargained for.
The patient admitted to the ward the previous afternoon had choked to death on their evening meal; none of the nurses had known what to do, the doctor had taken 30 minutes to arrive by which time the patient had asphyxiated.
So I was left considering this scenario - you are Cambodian, you get sick, the traditional khmer medicine doesn't work, you are able to afford transport to the local hospital, you either can pay the user fee or have a letter to prove that you are poor so can have the UF paid for you, you are well enough that you don't die waiting for some kind of medical attention, you survive whatever medical attention or inattention you receive and you can either afford to buy food or receive the rice soup provided by the hospital. But then when you choke on your food in hospital nobody knows what to do. The irony of it is you will have probably spent most of your life hungry or working all day every day just to put some food in your belly so that one day it will go down the wrong tube and no-one will have any of the training or skills to help you.
This week I go to a fellow VSO volunteer's hospital to conduct some emergency triage assessment and treatment training, the week after we have a basic life support course in my hospital - both involve choking algorithms. It seems so basic but then again it is the simple things that save lives.
Capacity building is an expensive and slow process but ultimately I still believe it to be the most sustainable way of improving peoples lives and in the words of Student Community Action's motto (circa 1990s) "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem". Although I'm learning it is possible you can be both!
Happy world food day - remember to chew......
I could discuss all the food that I love here and how long the gratification lasts after consuming certain comfort food stuffs (for the record dumplings from the noodle shop are pretty high up the gratification scale lasting a good 7 hours at least and thats with out the garlic repeating).
Equally I could talk about all the food that I crave or have fantasies about, better still the welfare packages I have received from home (and Australia) that even reminded me of things I had forgotten to miss (dorset cereal, tim tams, peppermint tea, green & black Maya Gold chocolate - the list is endless).
There is at least a whole blog on cooking with just a wok and a skillet with no sharp knives at your disposal.
I could discuss the recent floods in Cambodia and the destroyed rice harvest and threatened food shortage. Or the malnourishment wing of the paediatric ward and the shock of seeing a severe marasmus infant. Or how you feed yourself on less than $2 a day (not very well but two thirds of Cambodians have no choice).
But I am going to keep it short, sweet, tenuously connected to food and of course medical.....
Every morning there is a hospital meeting where new patient admissions, deaths and any other current management problems are discussed. Occasionally something is brought up that reminds you why you attend these meetings, despite the hours of 'ot mean' - 'don't have' conversations you have had to sit through.
Last Friday was one of those days, there had been a death on one of the wards and as my new VA translated the conversation I realized that going back to basics was going to need to be a lot more basic than I had bargained for.
The patient admitted to the ward the previous afternoon had choked to death on their evening meal; none of the nurses had known what to do, the doctor had taken 30 minutes to arrive by which time the patient had asphyxiated.
So I was left considering this scenario - you are Cambodian, you get sick, the traditional khmer medicine doesn't work, you are able to afford transport to the local hospital, you either can pay the user fee or have a letter to prove that you are poor so can have the UF paid for you, you are well enough that you don't die waiting for some kind of medical attention, you survive whatever medical attention or inattention you receive and you can either afford to buy food or receive the rice soup provided by the hospital. But then when you choke on your food in hospital nobody knows what to do. The irony of it is you will have probably spent most of your life hungry or working all day every day just to put some food in your belly so that one day it will go down the wrong tube and no-one will have any of the training or skills to help you.
This week I go to a fellow VSO volunteer's hospital to conduct some emergency triage assessment and treatment training, the week after we have a basic life support course in my hospital - both involve choking algorithms. It seems so basic but then again it is the simple things that save lives.
Capacity building is an expensive and slow process but ultimately I still believe it to be the most sustainable way of improving peoples lives and in the words of Student Community Action's motto (circa 1990s) "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem". Although I'm learning it is possible you can be both!
Happy world food day - remember to chew......
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