Odds and sods...

Front Entrance of the hospital

The Labour room, delivery room and dilation aid!





Today was slow in terms of births - no babies today. However we were asked to give a presentation on our goals in coming here, and to talk about some of the differences in protocols between Canada and The Bahamas. Our host Mary was very excited about another opportunity for us to promote change here, and so she spent the morning baking as we polished our powerpoint presentation and gathered scientific papers to back up our information.This was well received and we feel accepted by most of the staff.

The meeting began with a prayer as apparently is protocol here as well as the practice of taking a doggy bag of treats home with you - therefore there was nothing left to bring home for us. Weird but that's the way here.

Our talk was quite well received and we got some really good questions and feedback from the people who attended. We gave the presentation in one of the labour rooms and everyone that attended sat in the hallway to listen to us! I tried to pave the way for other Bastyr students to come here in the future and was told that as long as they are as nice as me that would be OK! I'll happily take the compliment :)

In other news it seems like winter is coming to The Bahamas as it will only be +16 or so in a couple of days - shocking! We may have to break out the sweaters even. Our lovely couple from the other day contacted us by email to tell us how much they appreciated our help during their birth, so that was really special.

Here's hoping that I (Helen) will be busy, busy, busy for the next two weeks before we have to get back to frozen reality. Jen is looking forward to helping Mary teach some prenatal classes and accompanying me to some births. We are both loving the interaction we are able to have with the families here, and of course the beach is not bad either...