Anandaban Hospital

Megérkeztem az elsö kórházba, ami Anandaban névre hallgat és fent van a hegyen, egy órás kátyús útra a várostól. Ez egy föleg leprásokra szakosodott kórház, de sima traumát is el tudnak látni. Itt egy Marie nevü francia építész lánnyal lettem elszállásolva egy házban, aki itt egy építkezési projekten dolgozik már 2 éve. Névjegykártyát meg sípot is kaptam, ha netán bajba kerülnék (?), meg tanácsot, hogy sötétedés után ne nagyon járkáljak kint, mert vannak pl. tigrisek. Elsö nap rendelésen voltam, ahol 3 óra alatt kb 45 bteggel találkoztunk, egy kutya konstans társaságában. Aztán következö nap a mütöben voltam (talán a felszerelés nem sokkal rosszabb,  mint Pesten), viszont vannak érdekes megoldásaik, pl. a fütötest az oxigén mellett. Ma egyedül vagyok, mert Marie házon kívül van, remélem, nem jönnek a tigrisek...

On monday morning I was picked up by a local guy and been transported to the first hospital I should be at, called Anandaban. Took about one hour to get there, mostly because the road is so bad, there are more holes than road. If I ever had kidney stone it is gone now. The place is higher up, around 1600 m, in the mountains. 

It is a hospital mostly for patients with leprosy, there they between other things do reconstructive surgery. Totally they have around 150 beds (80 out of that is for leprosy patients) and they carry out a lot of research work for what they are quite famous in other parts of the world as well. There is an emergency unit too so they do some general trauma surgery also. I have met already with the director of the hospital and Dr Indra (an orthopaedic surgeon) who is friend with some nice people I know from Örebro. I have been given a tour around and introduced me to a french girl Marie whom I will be living together with in a guest house (called Rose Garden). Looks like this:

She is an architect and been here for 2 years now, working on a new emergency building. I even got a welcome flower and a card and a whistle which I should use in case of “I am in trouble”.... hm...

Also I have been informed that I shouldn’t wander around after dark because of animals, for example tigers. First I thought he was joking but no. Otherwise there are even some eagles (which are hard to take a photo of unfortunately..).

I had my first clinic day now which I spent with Dr Ashim who is one of the 3 orthopaedic surgeons here. The mornings start at 08.30 with a devotion. The first day they even introduced me as “the orthopaedic surgeon from Sweden”. Thought it is a bit overkill one week after I became a specialist but what can I say. After the morning session we visited the admitted patients (around 7-8 patients) then we had fika with something which was somewhere between tea and coffee (hard to know) then the outpatient clinic started around 10 am. Between that and 2 pm we have seen around 45 patients (including a one hour lunch break). 80 % of them with knee or back pain. And almost all of them got Arcoxia, Gabapentin, Omeprazol and vitamins prescribed regardless the reason of visit. There is an x-ray in the next room so it took about 5 mins to get the pictures (not like in Örebro...). During the examinations we enjoyed the company of a dog who was present almost the whole time in the room. 

The next day (today) I was in the OR, there was 3 surgeries. The first one was a guy who partially amputated his little finger (sorry non-doctors) which actually could have been done outside the OR, then a leprosy patient with a wound that is not healing and then the last one with a fracture in the knee. The OR from inside:

Not much worse than some hospitals in Hungary... they have some interesting solutions though, using a drill machine from like Media Markt and the little heater on the right with a little open fire in it, just next to the oxigen tanks. Thankfully most of the patients got spinal anestesia (in which the person who does it is quite good and fast at). No ventillation at all. I have seen an AC but probably it was out of order. The C-arm on the right comes from Sweden and has been functioning almost 10 years. Otherwise their operation technics are quite similar to ours just with a bit more simple tools and solutions. The surgeons are also quite skilled I think.

Today I am without Marie and alone in the whole house, hope no tiger comes... otherwise I am happy if you give some feedback sometimes in any form, so I know that someone reads this. :)