OK, so we have free universal medical care for people in Dominica (not the Dominican Republic), no card necessary, no paper work. But, there is a major problem in organization at the clinic. There are always doctors at the main hospitals but the doctor comes to the village clinic only once a month and has three jobs: 1) emergencies, 2) do the preliminaries before seeing the doctor, 3) dispense the (free) medications for the month. There is a pharmacist, a nurse and the doctor. The nurse is at the clinic everyday except Tuesday and Thursday when she makes her round of home visits. She even came up here once and I am kind of out in the bush.

This morning when I got to the clinic there were 70 people there before it opened. Completely disorganized on the "first come, first serve" basis... and those who live out on the farms or the bush (like myself) get there later than the villagers. Result is you get a lot of a bit sick, semi-disabled people in their 70's, 80's, 90's and a centurion or two having to sit on uncomfortable benches for (in my case) 7 hours, not knowing exactly where in line they are. Its an organization problem and simply fixed (see next paragraph). Although I do wonder if all the oldsters who don't get out much look forward to seeing each other and hanging out.

I went down to the community center for an hour to find a decent place to sit, and lost my place and ended up last. LOL. At the same time I was able to suggest to the people at the center that we should organize the doctor visit days so that everyone gets a number from a roll of paper... so that if you are say 30 people away, you can go home for 30 people x (9) to 10 minutes = about 3 1/2 hours minutes and then come back. For the once monthly patients a number could be given when they leave this months visit so if they are number 30 they can calculate getting in abut 11 AM.

OK, also while I was at the community center I spent most of the time talking to the cook for the school lunch program. The kids bring their own lunch containers during recess and set them up for serving at noon. The food was all locally grown vegetables and either fish or chicken with a filler of local yams, or another local tropical tuber.... except today there was macaroni with stew. Man, it looked and smelled great, and healthy. The food cost is donated from a benefactor in the USA and not expensive using local grown, and the cook is paid by a $2.00 a week payment by the kids. The kids that don't have $2.00 eat as well. No signing up, no poverty level requirements, no shaming, healthy eats that the kids like cooked by someone they all know.

Note: If anyone wants to send the simplest paper roll thingie for numbers (there aren't any here) and enough paper tapes for 70 x 50 patients a year, I can give them the direct address to the community clinic through private message.

Clinic

Cook

Village Street Scene