Baca Ortiz Hospital

Over the past ten days I have been settling into my new job and searching for places to volunteer. I stumbled across and organization named "Fundacion Sol y Vida" (Foundation of Sun and Life) which is a non-profit organization based in the Baca Ortiz Hospital in Quito. From what I can tell there are two children's hospitals in Ecuadaor and this is the main one (the other is on the pacific coast). People travel from all over the country, mostly on bus rides from anywhere between 2-12 hours, to receive treatment. It is a general public hospital but this foundation in particular works as a middle man to subsidize the price of chemotherapy medications for children with cancer.

Yesterday I had my first opportunity to tour the hospital and I had mediocre expectations because of the financial state of the country, but was somewhat hopeful because this is supposed to be the premiere children's hospital. Needless to say I was shocked when we walked into the building to see literally hundreds of people packed in and sick children everywhere. There were lines of people waiting to receive bread and bananas in the lobby and the smell was awful. The doctor giving me the tour explained that people show up between 5-6am and begin waiting in lines. At around 8am, these ticket office type windows open and give out numbers to those in line until about 10am. Almost all of the doctors that work in this part of the hospital work from 8ish-12 and then work in private clinics in the afternoon.

She also took me up to a few of the upper floors of the hospital that are privately funded and the change is incredible. The first two floors of the building are dirty and run down while the upper floors of the same building resemble what we would find in a hospital in the U.S. Still, much of the equipment that was brand new two years ago is broken and some medications are hard to come by. I was also surprised to hear that over 95% of their chemotherapy patients are ambulatory (Quimoterapia ambulatorio). After the children receive their medication they are sent home (even though it may be hours away) because the hospital is filled with bacteria and they are more prone to infection if they were to stay.

It was quite the experience and I look forward to going back and spending time with the children while they receive their treatments.