I went for the catchy title, I hope you all like it! Just kidding. I am currently sitting in my bed in the guest house of Aligarh Muslim University in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh (UP). UP is a state east of Delhi with about 200 million people (apparently it would be the fifth most populous country in the world if it were a country of its own! Who knew?) and it is also one of the most impoverished. We are here Tuesday-Friday visiting various levels of health care and meeting doctors, publics health professionals, and professors of medicine.
I woke up at 4:24 a.m. this morning to take a shower and get ready to head to the train station with Rachael. We were basically out of water again, so I had to take a bucket shower with a bucket of water my host parents keep filled in the bathroom for bathing purposes. I also kind of squatted and tried to shower underneath the lower faucet because water was still flowing from that (but not from the shower head) but that was largely uncomfortable and unsuccessful. Apparently each flat has a water tank that fills every morning between 7 and 9 a.m., and that constitutes all the water that apartment can use for the day. This is almost always more than enough, but sometimes the water doesn't come properly in the morning and the tank doesn't get completely filled, so water runs out during the day. To be fair, this morning I was showering at the very, very tail end of the time period before water comes again, so it was understandable that there wasn't much left and there wasn't enough to build up water pressure for it to come out of the shower head. It happened the first night I was here when I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, but I just assumed they turned the water off for some reason. The next day, however, we completely ran out of water in the afternoon, so Adil had to get a big jug of it from his sister's house. As people like to say all the time, welcome to India.
After my bucket/faucet shower this morning, Rachael and I headed out the door to meet the taxi that Adil had kindly called for us the night before. Apparently the first call to prayer for Muslims happens at 5 a.m., so we heard that as we groggily left the apartment. Adil said the driver knew where we were going, but I tried to confirm once we got in the car. I don't think he spoke any English, so I just assumed he knew where he was going and eventually we ended up at New Delhi Railway Station! Everyone was looking super tired as we boarded our train at 6:15 a.m. to head off to Aligarh, but luckily we were able to sleep for about an hour in our air-conditioned coach.
After breakfast at the guest house, we bussed to JNL Medical College at AMU and had an introduction to the Community Health Department. I almost fell asleep (just like being in class at Dartmouth!) and then we were split up into groups to visit the outpatient clinics. I decided to go to the obstetrics and gynecology clinic with four other girls, so we were led down there by a medical resident. The hallways were bustling and crowded, with many women in head coverings and even burqas, because Aligarh has a large, conservative Muslim population. Almost as soon as we got to the OB/GYN section of the outpatient area, the power went out. Power outages are common in India but usually get resolved quickly in the cities. In rural areas, they often last for much longer. I assumed the hospital would be on a generator, but a doctor said that they aren't reliable and often take a while to kick in. In the clinic area, women waited outside while a guard at the outer door let them in a few at a time. The actual practitioners were in a rectangular room and sat at a small table, while people bustled around everywhere. At any given time, there were probably 20 or 30 people in the not-very-large room. The chief doctor said that she sees 180 patients a day, which is a ridiculously high number. There is no privacy for women speaking with the doctor, other than a sheet draped over the midsection during physical examinations.
For the first 10 minutes our so, the power was out but the doctors continued to speak with patients. After brief chats, the head OB/GYN would rattle off a list of things to a younger doctor, who would write them down and give them to the patient. The doctor told us that although Indian law requires hospitals to keep their own medical records, they make the patients responsible for holding onto their records at all times. She said that theoretically they could be sued for this record-keeping practice, but the patients are poor and don't know their rights so they would never raise a complaint. Just imagine if this is how the health care system operated in the United States! You would be forced to bring all of your relevant medical records with you to the doctor, wait for an extended period of time, discuss your most personal health issues in front of other patients and whoever happens to be in the room, and figure out how to do all this with incredibly limited access to resources. The government provides free kits for dealing with certain health concerns, so the doctor gave several of these out while we were there.
We saw an abdominal exam of a pregnant woman, a woman who had TB-induced infertility, and other women whose health conditions we couldn't discern because everything was done in Hindi. The woman who couldn't conceive had already had one miscarriage and (it sounded like) and intentional abortion before that. The doctor sent her for a round of tests, and she had her blood drawn by two men at a table in the same room.
We then heard a short presentation from people at the medical school, and we awkwardly sat in on a Doctors Without Borders presentation that was really meant for doctors at the hospital (but was really interesting anyway). Right now we have rest time, and in a few hours we're going to go on a tour of the university campus. We have several other hospital visits while we're here (to which we have to bring the same surgical mask we wore today, ew!) so hopefully I will have more to update about. Namaste friends!
I woke up at 4:24 a.m. this morning to take a shower and get ready to head to the train station with Rachael. We were basically out of water again, so I had to take a bucket shower with a bucket of water my host parents keep filled in the bathroom for bathing purposes. I also kind of squatted and tried to shower underneath the lower faucet because water was still flowing from that (but not from the shower head) but that was largely uncomfortable and unsuccessful. Apparently each flat has a water tank that fills every morning between 7 and 9 a.m., and that constitutes all the water that apartment can use for the day. This is almost always more than enough, but sometimes the water doesn't come properly in the morning and the tank doesn't get completely filled, so water runs out during the day. To be fair, this morning I was showering at the very, very tail end of the time period before water comes again, so it was understandable that there wasn't much left and there wasn't enough to build up water pressure for it to come out of the shower head. It happened the first night I was here when I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, but I just assumed they turned the water off for some reason. The next day, however, we completely ran out of water in the afternoon, so Adil had to get a big jug of it from his sister's house. As people like to say all the time, welcome to India.
After my bucket/faucet shower this morning, Rachael and I headed out the door to meet the taxi that Adil had kindly called for us the night before. Apparently the first call to prayer for Muslims happens at 5 a.m., so we heard that as we groggily left the apartment. Adil said the driver knew where we were going, but I tried to confirm once we got in the car. I don't think he spoke any English, so I just assumed he knew where he was going and eventually we ended up at New Delhi Railway Station! Everyone was looking super tired as we boarded our train at 6:15 a.m. to head off to Aligarh, but luckily we were able to sleep for about an hour in our air-conditioned coach.
After breakfast at the guest house, we bussed to JNL Medical College at AMU and had an introduction to the Community Health Department. I almost fell asleep (just like being in class at Dartmouth!) and then we were split up into groups to visit the outpatient clinics. I decided to go to the obstetrics and gynecology clinic with four other girls, so we were led down there by a medical resident. The hallways were bustling and crowded, with many women in head coverings and even burqas, because Aligarh has a large, conservative Muslim population. Almost as soon as we got to the OB/GYN section of the outpatient area, the power went out. Power outages are common in India but usually get resolved quickly in the cities. In rural areas, they often last for much longer. I assumed the hospital would be on a generator, but a doctor said that they aren't reliable and often take a while to kick in. In the clinic area, women waited outside while a guard at the outer door let them in a few at a time. The actual practitioners were in a rectangular room and sat at a small table, while people bustled around everywhere. At any given time, there were probably 20 or 30 people in the not-very-large room. The chief doctor said that she sees 180 patients a day, which is a ridiculously high number. There is no privacy for women speaking with the doctor, other than a sheet draped over the midsection during physical examinations.
For the first 10 minutes our so, the power was out but the doctors continued to speak with patients. After brief chats, the head OB/GYN would rattle off a list of things to a younger doctor, who would write them down and give them to the patient. The doctor told us that although Indian law requires hospitals to keep their own medical records, they make the patients responsible for holding onto their records at all times. She said that theoretically they could be sued for this record-keeping practice, but the patients are poor and don't know their rights so they would never raise a complaint. Just imagine if this is how the health care system operated in the United States! You would be forced to bring all of your relevant medical records with you to the doctor, wait for an extended period of time, discuss your most personal health issues in front of other patients and whoever happens to be in the room, and figure out how to do all this with incredibly limited access to resources. The government provides free kits for dealing with certain health concerns, so the doctor gave several of these out while we were there.
We saw an abdominal exam of a pregnant woman, a woman who had TB-induced infertility, and other women whose health conditions we couldn't discern because everything was done in Hindi. The woman who couldn't conceive had already had one miscarriage and (it sounded like) and intentional abortion before that. The doctor sent her for a round of tests, and she had her blood drawn by two men at a table in the same room.
We then heard a short presentation from people at the medical school, and we awkwardly sat in on a Doctors Without Borders presentation that was really meant for doctors at the hospital (but was really interesting anyway). Right now we have rest time, and in a few hours we're going to go on a tour of the university campus. We have several other hospital visits while we're here (to which we have to bring the same surgical mask we wore today, ew!) so hopefully I will have more to update about. Namaste friends!
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