A week of meetings

The picture to the left and below are of the ER entrance to the 3000 bed Nation Hospital in COLOMBO.
The standard of care inside is excellent. Just like a level 1 trauma center in U.S. All hospital care is free in Sri Lanka.
.......... Getting there is the problem...........
This week Carol, (the director of all NWMT operations in Sri Lanka) dragged me around to meet the important physicians, heads of NGO's (Non Government Orgonizations), and various government officials with an interest in the EMS side of medical care in Sri Lanka. Carol has worked in many third world countries and is an pro at networking and otherwise getting things done. She has done a huge amount of foundational work on the EMS project over the last year and a half since the Tsunami. She is hard to keep up with. I'm finding that getting this project off the ground requires meeting with lots of people. Many of whom have been working for, and advocating the development of an EMS system allready. She has a very full plate and is trying to pawn all the EMS stuff off on me. The meeting with the Ministry of Health required a prearranged pass, bomb check, and no cameras. Most of the other meetings required less security. But there is allways lots of security people everywere.


The picture to the Right was taken in the hill
country on the weekend. The mother on the left in the Tuk Tuk,(tri shaw), was holding her limp and in my perception soon to die 10 y/o or so, daughter in her arms, (purple dress). There was also a 3rd person in the back helping. The mother had just run out to the nearest street and walked in a circle trying to block traffic until someone driving a tri shaw stopped and was willing to take them to the nearest hospital. I'm pretty sure the mom took the time to dress her daughter and herself in their best cloths to get them a better chance of a ride/the appearance of money. This, tragically, is typical of how acute medical and traumatic emergencies are delt with at the prehospital level for the vast majority of the 20 million people in this country. After 25 years as a paramedic I found it very difficult to hold tears back after witnessing this sad pathetic scene play out.