Dominica

Like Heather said earlier, the WIFI on the ship has been out for most of the time that we have been in Dominica and I didn't want to drag my computer down into town to use the internet at a restaurant to post a blog.

Dominica has been much easier than Colombia just in travel alone.  We got to be pier side here so that meant no tinder rides, which is great for my motion sickness.  We did have an hour van ride to Medsite 2, but that was still better than the up to 3 hour boat rides from Colombia.  Another benefit of being pier side is that we got to have some liberty when we were not working. That meant meals not from the mess decks and some time to wander around Roseau.

The first day after set up, I went out to Medsite 1 which was a few blocks from where the boat was docked in Roseau. They had not been able to set up the pharmacy the day before because of surgical screening so we had to set up pharmacy and get ready for patients relatively quickly.  The people who had been there before told us that the pharmacy was going to be small, but I did not expect it to be as small as it was.  We could barely fit the 5 of us and all the medications into the room, much less patients in there to pick up their medications.  So, I was given door duty for the day.  That meant I had to get the forms from the patients when the came to the pharmacy, make sure they did not come in the door, and then counsel them when the medications were ready.  That made for a busy day because the patients really wanted to come into the pharmacy and see what was going on.

The next day Heather and I went to Princess Margaret Hospital on a SMEE.  We got to see how the hospital was set up as well as how they run their pharmacy.

I spent the next 2 times that I was out at Medsite 2 which was in Portsmouth.  We had an hour van ride there on a coastal road, that we learned was built by the Chinese government. The pharmacy at Medsite 2 was super spacious compared to Medsite 1.

I had one more day at Medsite 1 and then was off the last 2 days we were here. I got to spend some time exploring the small area in Roseau that we were allowed to wander around before we pulled out tonight.

We get to Barbados tomorrow and will fly out the next day.

I will post pictures on Dominica when we get back to the land of relatively fast internet.

I can't believe that our 5 weeks here are already over.