Wiñay

This past week I began volunteering at Wiñay, a progressive health clinic that offers women's health services as well as a great dentist; you can get a PAP and a cavity filled in one stop!

The clinic is located in a suburb of Cochabamba, called Quillacollo, about a 30 minute bus ride away. Wiñay has a gynecologist, two dentist who rotate days, a counselor, a lab technician, and two nurses (who are all women). The clinic administrator/boss is the only man on staff, and most of the time, is the only man in the busy clinic. The clinic is set up similar to a doctor's office, with a waiting room with a big cable TV adjacent to the front desk, and patients are called by the nurses to proceed to the doctor's office. Wiñay is a privately funded clinic, patients do not have to show an insurance card, simply pay a small fee (i.e. a pediatric check up is 25 Bolivianos, which is equivalent to about $3, and a visit to the gynecologist, including a PAP, is 70 Bs, just under $10). A large percent of the patients who come to the clinic are Quechua indigenous peoples.
(The photo on the left is the Wiñay informational brochure on cervical cancer.)

I am learning the medical vocabulary and working on my Spanish through conversations with new friends. For now I am helping out with checking patients in, retrieving prescriptions and test results. Once I feel more comfortable with the language, the system and the doctors, I will occasionally shadow doctors and take on new projects.