Hello everyone! This is Deb…So a bit about my placement….I work at Sacele Hospital which is about an hour away from where I live by the time I have caught 2 buses. It is quite a nice drive – my loved ones keep me company on the way to work by texting me. My bus is about a 10 minute walk from our house and I catch the number 23 at 0820.
Once getting off the bus it is about a 10 to 15 minute walk to the hospital. There are no signs saying where it is and if I didn’t have the other volunteers with me I would no doubt get lost every day. It is the most random spot for a hospital but in a very picturesque location which is about 10 minutes away from the Gypsy community. The babies I look after are all gypsy and most of them have mothers but they do not visit and may not ever come back for them. One boy I look after is a year and a half old but looks about 6 months. He came into hospital malnourished. He was unable to show expression on his face or cry and did not want anyone touching him. Even after 2 and a bit weeks he is a different little boy. He now smiles and does not like to be put back in his cot. He wants to be held all the time and when he cries tears actually come out. The doctor will not allow him to return home to the gypsy village as being malnourished is classed as abuse and neglect. He will now sadly go to the orphanage. He has the most amazing smile and the biggest brown eyes you will ever see. The thing I find the hardest is when you look at all those innocent babies and how gorgeous they are, you truly can’t comprehend how their mothers could leave them.
So the routine at the hospital consists of going into the babies room and seeing how many there are and then finding appropriate (if u can call it that) clothes for them. The hospital has very limited clothes and you basically have to dress them in whatever you can find. We then go to the playroom to get organised for the day. Each day we are supposed to open up the playroom for all the mothers and children in the hospital. It can be very challenging depending how many volunteers there are, as most of the mothers are very young so they want to play with all the toys and they just leave their babies for us to watch.
We then go down to the babies room to change them all if the nurses haven’t yet. After changing them we give them bottles of tea and then have quite a bit of time to play with them. None of us really like opening the playroom as it takes time away from the babies. The other babies in the hospital have mothers, so we feel that it is more important to spend time with ‘our’ babies seeing as they don’t have mothers with them.
At 1230 it is lunchtime, which consists of mashed potato. The very young babies (2 months) get a bottle of milk. When the food gets delivered the babies are always very eager to eat. We all love feeding them as we know how much they appreciate it. They are supposed to get 3 bottles of tea a day but we’re not 100% sure once we leave if they get them or not.
Before I left, I was told none of the nurses care for the gyspy babies. This is not true. The Doctor and nurses really love the babies. They’re just understaffed so are unable to spend the same amount of time with them as the volunteers can.
Once the babies are fed we change them again and then put them down for a nap. This is the hardest part of the day for us all because they know when we pack up the toys etc that we are leaving. I actually have to make myself walk out because if I don’t I will stay there all day and night. Every baby cries when you walk out and it breaks my heart every day. When you walk in the room they smile and laugh and put their arms out to be picked up.
My favourite little boy had his mum come to visit, and when she walked in he had no idea who she was. She had to keep telling him she was his mum. I found it very sad but at the same time rewarding knowing he was more excited to see me than his own mother.
Most of the mothers are extremely young. In the gypsy village it is very common for the young girl to be raped and become pregnant. Once a girl is no longer a virgin no-one will marry her so she has to marry the rapist. One girl I spoke to today was 13 when she got married. She is now 14 with a baby. Another girl was 25 with 5 babies. It is something I simply cannot comprehend. The gypsies live in an extremely poor area with no water or electricity. A lot of accidents occur from trying to steal electricity from the main power source. One little girl came in with burns on her feet. The water they seek is about 10 to 20 minutes away from their village and it is used for everything. One volunteer visited the gypsy village and they offered her a drink which she accepted (stupidly) and she was ill for 3 weeks as it was the same water the dog drank from and who knows what else it was used for. Hygiene does not even exist in the gypsy community. We are occasionally allowed to bath the babies and they scream when we first put them in the water as it is completely foreign to them. Once they discover it will not hurt them they tend to relax a bit. Most of the babies have never had a bath.
So far I have looked after all the same babies but 3 have gone home. One new girl came in yesterday and she is so frightened she just cries most of the time. It is quite sad seeing the babies go home as they are likely to return again from receiving poor care. Apparently they have quite a few regulars there.
So that is my placement in a nutshell. Once the babies have settled we go back into town which is usually around 3pm. My friend Lora and I tend to go to the internet cafe to catch up on everything back at home and then we go to the German Cafe which has the best chocolate croissants ever!!!!
I hope you have enjoyed reading about my placement. I have enjoyed writing about it!! Miss you all xxxxxxxx