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| A small part of the school campus |
After school I took the metro to the center and did some shopping. I left the subway on Syntagma Square which is on the opposite of the main shopping street. It was crowded with people so I tried to be quick. I knew it was going to rain at the end of the week so I bought an umbrella. I also didn't pack a purse with me from Finland, so I got one of those as well, and after learning how cold it can be inside the apartment I figured I needed some slippers too.
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| The Syntagma Square |
On Wednesday I met the professor from TEI of Athens outside the metro station of Panormou. He showed me the way to my first placement which is the Educational Health Center of Red Cross. He introduced me to my supervisor and of course to the manager of the Center. The staff was really nice and I felt very welcommed.
The Educational Health Center is in a old, quite small building and it consists of a mobile unit and the actual health center. I will stay at the health center for four weeks and then I will have my last week with the mobile unit. At the center they only treat patients who are under 14 years. I think they have two pediatricians but one of them has been sick so I haven't met him/her. They also have a gynecologist who got really excited when he heard I am studying to become a midwife. His first question was if I'm able to assist in giving birth. Well, I have played a "Baby Bakery" game in one of my courses at school, but I wouldn't say I'm qualified...
I spent my first day at the reception where the patients come to make an appointment to the doctor or to "check in" for the appointment. The patients are mainly children from refugee families or disadvantaged Greek families. You notice that the culture is very different because a big part of the patients don't even show up for their appointments and some can show up 3 hours late and tell us that they were sleeping... The principle is that they only take patients with appointments or with acute needs, but for example one day a family with eight children walked in without any appointment and they still got a time to the doctor for vaccinations.
Because of all the refugees they have two translators working there as well, one for Farsi and one for Arabic. I got to watch a health education powerpoint presentation of hygiene with some Arabic kids but I had to follow the gestures in stead of the language, because the presentation was held in Greek and they had it translated forward to Arabic. So the communication isn't only hard to me, it's hard to the staff as well. One day with the metro on strike, the Farsi translator didn't make it on time to work so I used google translator with some patients... It worked pretty well.
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| The Educational Health Center of Red Cross |
On the second and third day I did my training with my supervisor in the nurse's reception. Usually the patients are there for a health check before the vaccinations or for some kind of health certification the school requires. We always take the height, weight and the temperature, and with babies also the head circumference. For the certification we also take the blood pressure, pulse and do a sight test. There is a lot of patient counseling about nutrition etc., but that is hard to participate in because of the language barrier.
On Friday the metro was on a strike so I had to take the bus for the first time here in Greece. It was pretty easy; I walked 20 minutes to the bus stop and travelled with the bus for 10 minutes and then I walked five minutes to the Health Center. But on my way home the traffic was so jammed that I decided to exit the bus and walk home in the sunny weather. There were police men all over the Place trying to guide the traffic. Oh, and one thing I have noticed is that the people here don't let the ambulances through the traffic even though it has the siren screaming. Tomorrow all the public transports are on strike so I will have to walk to my practical training which is an hour away - let's hope it doesn't rain!
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