5/17/2007

Clinic - RENEUP

Reneup is a clinic for children with Neurological conditions aged 0-10 years. It is self funded by the director and the families only pay what they can contribute. It is run from his home - which is 3 floors, the top is his living areas with his 3 kids, middle is the clinic and the ground floor is the school. In the clinic they have 2 physiotherapists, 1 speech language therapist, and at the moment no occupational therapist (except me).
Well I worked in the clinic for 3 weeks and here is a brief run down. I was thrown in the deep end...
Week 1: I spoke no spanish (I was learning in the mornings) and had a timetable where had had 4 kids Monday, Wednesday and Friday and only 1-2 on Tuesday and Thursday. They turned up but I couldn't do much. In addition, as you can see I had little resources and no way of finding out what the capabilities and difficulties were for the children. This week was trial and error, lots of constrution with my blocks and drawing.
Week 2: Kids turned up but in 5 days only 6-7. Had a few resources which I bought here in the supermarket and bookshops, but still had limited spanish.
Week 3: 1 child turned up for one session all week. I heard that a surgeon was here that week from Columbia, for orthopedic surgery, and this could have been where some of the kids were. He comes only two times a year for a week each time.
I spent a lot of time in week 3 reflecting on what I was doing and asking questions of the director of the clinic about the school, the clinic and the health service in Ecuador. I have a lot of info to post but that will happen at a later date.

2 comentarios:

Anónimo dijo...

I'm a speech pathologist, may visit RENEUP in Manta. Any recommendations? Anything I should bring?

Anónimo dijo...

Also helping RENEUP : www.uneoptiondeplus.org