I've tried to write this post about 5 times and it's so hard! To summarize such a life-changing and wonderful experience in one post is nearly impossible! My second trip to Morocco was so much more than a few weeks of volunteering and traveling. From all of the wonderful and hospitable people we met during our travels, to the dedicated and hardworking Volunteer Morocco employees who ensured our safety, comfort, and that we had a great time, I am extremely humbled and will forever be grateful to all that they did for us, and taught us. Meeting and working with so many new people from a new culture teaches you a lot, and has allowed me to improve my communication skills and well as to learn about a culture different than my own. I also learned from the people I traveled with! The girls I traveled to Morocco with taught me so much, especially, how to work as part of a team towards the same goal, regardless of how long you have known them. Teamwork is a transferrable skill that I will use throughout my life and career and any opportunity to develop those skills is one I will gladly take! Traveling to a country less fortunate than the one you are from is always an opportunity to take time and be grateful for what you have and the opportunities you are offered that not everyone else is. It is also an opportunity to learn from them. I find that because we have everything we could ever need here in America, it prevents us from learning how to improvise or work efficiently with less than optimal conditions. Traveling somewhere where they are extremely skilled at that offers a huge learning opportunity to see how to do things a different way, or with different resources. Overall, my experience with Volunteer Morocco was everything I could hope it would be and more and I would 100% recommend anyone who was considering going, to open their minds and hearts and go!
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While in Morocco, our group had the opportunity to hear a presentation about the healthcare system in Morocco. We learned about both the private and public sectors of healthcare there and heard some concerning statistics regarding the delivery system there. They lack funding to hire enough providers and the ratio of providers to patients is almost half the World health Organization recommendation. To attempt to supplement the lack of providers and centers, they have adopted a traveling clinic approach. Our group had the opportunity to attend and participate in a rural health clinic while there. There we spent time taking vital signs and working in the triage tent to help patients get ready to see providers in various specialties. We also got a tour of the clinic and saw the wide variety of providers that were available to patients who traveled to this clinic. It was an exciting opportunity to see healthcare delivered in a way we don't really see here in America. Opportunities like this allow students like me to learn so much about adaptability in healthcare and give us new ideas to help reach underserved populations.
Some of the experiences I had in Morocco that left the biggest impact on me, were the time spent visiting homeless shelters for youth, as well as an orphanage in Agadir. Although I had experienced visiting orphanages in the past, in other countries, the visit here struck me in another way. First, there are many small infants in the orphanages, something that you don't find in the US due to our foster system. While helping out for a morning, the caretakers informed me that I couldn't hold any of the babies for longer than five minutes, because otherwise they get used to being held, and when volunteers aren't there, there aren't enough people to soothe all the babies that want to be held. The room I was in, housed 15 infants from just a few weeks old, to about 10 months old. As I walked around the room, soothing crying babies, I felt sad to know that they can't be allowed to get used to being comforted in someone's arms. This experience offered me a new perspective as to how lucky I am to have been raised in a loving household, and also to live in a country where infants are able to be cared for in a smaller adult to child ratio, allowing them to experience human connection.
Similar to that experience, we also took time to visit a shelter for "street kids" who ranged in ages from about 7 to 17. There were about 20 kids, who welcomed us into their home and allowed us to teach them about oral hygiene, as well as play a well-known American game, musical chairs. These kids were older than those at the orphanage, but many came from similar circumstances. When we were old we would be visiting a shelter for homeless kids, I expected to come to a shelter full of teenagers, who were kicked out of their houses for bad behavior, or who ran away from home, as that is often the cause of situations such as those here in America. But what I walked into instead, was a shelter full of young, kind, open-minded children who just ended up in a bad situation. The staff at the shelter all showed love and compassion to the kids, and they all acted as if they were family. It filled my heart with joy to know that although they were "homeless" and disadvantaged in that way, they were being treated with such kindness and love. Working through these eye opening experiences not only encourages gratitude for me in my personal life, but also as a future healthcare professional. Having knowledge of situations such as these, helps me to be a more compassionate and understanding provider for others and opens my mind and heart to the fact that not all patients come from stable familial backgrounds, or even have families at all. As both of these visits were with minors, I haven't attached any pictures from this time.* One of the days of our trip, we spent shadowing a urologic surgeon at a hospital in Essaouira. He gave us a tour of the operating floor, spoke to us about the benefits and challenges of the facility, and shared some inspiring insight. Dr. Benjelloune, of Hospital Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah Hospital, showed us around, mentioning that the hospital was newly renovated and that the operating rooms are all brand new as of about one year ago. The faculty and staff are still adjusting to the new layout and building and shared with us that they do not have enough staff to use it as originally built. We saw their brand new sterilization center, equipped with all the necessary equipment to allow complete sterilization of surgical instruments and tools. Something, which he said they did not have until about 6 months ago. The hospital received funding to help equip them with necessities such as this equipment and surgical instruments and pharmaceutical supplies. We then spent the next few hours shadowing him in his scheduled surgeries for the day which included a Left Total Nephrectomy, a Trans-Urethral Resection of the Prostate, and a Ureteral Stricture Repair. He shared with us that he performs multiple "pro-bono" surgeries every week because patients here in Morocco have a hard time affording the life-saving care. The head operating nurse and one of the anesthesiologists shared with us that the biggest problem the hospital faces has nothing to do with having enough medicine, beds, equipment, or room, but lack of qualified staff. The operating room nurse serves in multiple roles, working to order and organize the pharmacy and surgical supplies, checking patients in and preparing them pre-operatively, assisting in surgery, assisting in post-operative care, and assisting and overseeing the sterilization and cleaning of the operating rooms and their contents. That is a lot of roles for one person to play! He told us that they don't have enough money or resources to hire outside parties to do some of those jobs, so although they have a big, beautiful new building, it can't be used to it's ability. Dr. Benjelloune and his staff's knowledge, hard work, and generosity were truly inspiring and this experience definitely opened my eyes to some of the challenges Moroccans face in terms of health care access and quality.
Providers such as Dr. Benjelloune, who provide such generosity and his nurses who work so hard to fill the shoes of many are the reason so many people in Morocco can live such long healthy lives, despite being faced with difficult illnesses. |
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AuthorMy name is Erika Bolduc. I am a second year Master of Physician Assistant Studies student at MCPHS University in Boston, MA. Archives
January 2020
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