Hospital Los Andes

I started working in Hospital Los Andes this week.  Los Andes is a small hospital specifically for children and mothers, located in the town of El Alto, a 40 minute bus ride north of La Paz with a higher percentage of the generally poorer, indigenous Aymaran population.   I worked with Dra. Gutierrez, a pediatrician in the outpatient clinic near the hospital. 

By 8 am, the small, cold (no central heating) waiting room already filled with moms and crying babies.  The bathroom toilet didn’t flush (so you can imagine what it looked like…), the floor covered with something I couldn’t see because of the dim lighting, there was no toilet paper, soap, or paper towels.  In the consult room (also cold while the space heater wheezed to life), Disney pictures and stickers added some brightness but were only minor distractions from the stained windows lined with mold and chipped paint across the walls.

In spite of all of this, my preceptor treated all her patients exceptionally warmly and motherly.  She says malnutrition, diarrhea, and hip dysplasia are common pediatric problems here.  Hip dysplasia is so common that every child gets pelvic X-rays at 3 months.  It was eye-opening how many mothers follow a tradition of wrapping a Faja around their baby’s bellies and/or a cord to tie their legs together into a straight column.  The babies can’t move their legs, so when they grow their hips don’t articulate properly.  Every time we see this in clinic we take the Faja off and give the parents a stern talk.  

The reason why I asked to spend the week here is I’m doing an anthropological (via interviews only) study on Bolivian women’s beliefs and understandings about family planning/ contraception.   The hospital sees many Aymara women so it’s a great opportunity to interview this specific cultural group.   Bolivia has high fertility rates, very high child mortality rates, and 14% of girls 14-19 years old are mothers!  So I’m interested in looking into out how social, cultural, religious, educational, economic, or other factors affect the women’s decisions to practice birth control.