Axel and Gigi's writeups on their Taveuni Hospital Visit

Axel's writeup on the Taveuni Hospital Visit

Our friend's neighbor in San Diego is the main volunteer at the Taveuni hospital in Fiji. He's a doctor that helps in surgery and organizes doctors and nurses to come from the U.S. to do different treatments. On our second day in Taveuni we got a tour of the hospital.

Every week they do a different service at the hospital. This week they were doing obstetrics, or woman's health. Next week they are doing cleft palates. Every week they bring in new doctors to do the different stuff.

On our tour I didn't see the patient rooms, but my Dad and his friend George saw them. They said there were lots of beds in each room. I saw the x-ray room and laboratory, and someone was making things for the nurses, it wasn't that exciting. Next we went to the operating theater, where they were operating on someone, it was cool to see an operation. Last we went into the clinic, which was being repaired, so there was a lot of construction equipment.

It was very different from an American hospital. For instance, normally they only have one doctor 2 days a week, also there is an open air reception. It was an interesting visit, although it isn't a place I would recommend you go to in Taveuni, unless you're sick.



Gigi's writeup on the Taveuni Hospital Visit

While my family and I were on the island of Taveuni, Fiji, we visited a local hospital where our friend's neighbor, Dr. Lance was volunteering. He is an anesthesiologist and he organizes teams of doctors to come to Fiji and perform specialized surgeries. Every week for eight weeks he brings in doctors and nurses with different specialties, who do surgeries and teach Fijian doctors and nurses how to do them. When we visited they were doing obstetrics, or women's health. We met up with him and he gave us a tour, showing us how this small and remote Fijian hospital was very different from a hospital in America. We were shown around to the different wards, and were even got to look into the operating theatre while the doctors were performing a hysterectomy.

When we first arrived at the hospital we were shown to the maternity ward, which had eight beds all filled with mothers and their newborn babies. There wasn't any fancy technology like in American hospitals, or even any real pillows. They told us about one woman who had had an emergency c-section the day before, and thankfully because they were doing obstetrics the baby was able to be saved. What was truly remarkable about this was that when the baby came out he was not breathing, and once they got him breathing they just put him in a incubator, and had a nurse come and check on him every once and a while. The next day the mother was up and walking, and changing and feeding her baby. The doctors told us about how the Fijians heal faster than most other people because of their high tolerance for pain, which has grown from their hard living conditions.

After the maternity ward we visited the recovery room where there were many beds filled with woman recovering from surgeries. We talked to some of the patients and then walked down the open air corridor to the operating theatre. Seeing the surgery was somewhat scary and weird, but also fascinating and unique. Next we saw the x-ray/ultrasound room and the emergency triage room, which was just a small nook in the wall. After our tour of the hospital we met some of the doctor and nurse's husbands who were working on rebuilding the bathrooms in the clinic just below the hospital. They showed us around the clinic and their construction site.

This Fijian hospital was different from an American hospital in many major ways. Parts of the hospital in Taveuni were open air, much different from hospitals in the USA, where everything is enclosed. When the specialized doctors are not there, there is only one doctor who comes to the hospital two days every week. There is also only two wards, the maternity and recovery, and there is a shortage of blankets and pillows. They had limited and outdated equipment, though what they did have was very nice. Visiting the hospital was a very interesting and unique experience that allowed me to see a bit of how the Fijians of Taveuni live.