Old ground, new possibilities

Took a little walk through the hospital grounds today. I was told that some parts of the buildings are around 300 years old. Today was a long day, honestly I have a lot of admiration for those who choose this path in medicine their dedication and hard work mean that many people who otherwise would be dead are alive today!

So here I think is a good place to talk more about my experience of nursing here in Romania. I think the first thing nurses from countries like the UK and Finland will notice is that some of the equipment is quite old, the beds are mostly manual as opposed to electric and some are quite damaged as they are so old this makes ergonomic practice quite difficult it seems quite a few nurses have back pain as a result. This also extends to equipment like wheelchairs, manual handling is at times quite challenging as a result.
Uniforms are not provided by the hospital, you can see a rainbow of colours in staff uniforms and at times it is not always obvious who is the nurse and who is the Dr, however the effect is quite beautiful and I value the individual freedom it allows. 
Work hours are typically 12 hours and the breaks are not official, so the day is very long. There are plenty little shops and cafes dotted around the hospital grounds and this is where we go when we need coffee or delicious pretzels (the ones covered with poppy seed and salt are amazing).

The rooms are divided by colour depending on the urgency of treatment required:
Red- this is for the most urgent cases, usually only 3 patients at a time are in this room
Yellow- This room is for intermediate needs patients and is by far the most crowded, I would dread to be working this room as it has no outside facing areas, so no windows, It gets hard to breath in this room.
Green- Often the patients here were not so urgent, basic wound care is the most common treatment in this room, however at times more serious traumatic  wound care happens here.
Blue- Non urgent cases, often awaiting results or to be moved to a specialist ward.
ICU- there are two small intensive care wards this seems to act as an area for more serious patients when their is not enough room in the actual ICU unit.

The relationship between nurses and doctors here is that the Dr's are in the position of absolute authority, this is a little strange for me as in Finland the division is not so obvious.

Emergency care in Romania is the only part of the healthcare that is free to everyone, this means that often those that can't afford health insurance will wait until they get very ill to seek treatment. For my mind this is a good argument for free universal healthcare, the cost in human life, suffering and of course also actual financial cost is much higher if people feel they cannot afford to get treatment when they get ill. 

Religion is very important here in Romania and you will as a result of this see icons of Saints and Jesus throughout the hospital. Their is a small shrine in the triage office and porters room to several staff who died due to a air ambulance crash that happened some years ago.

Patients are often although not exclusively older people. This means that communication is often a challenge as many are hard of hearing and do not speak English. I learned some Romanian and found that this combined with polite gestures allowed me to navigate most situations. When I needed help to communicate, then usually one of my awesome supervisors would usually assist me.

I feel that during my time here my nursing skills improved considerably, and of course when you don't have the most modern equipment you need to know a few tricks that are very helpful. My supervisors were so patient and friendly and many of the other staff were helpful to this student. This is the lasting memory I have of people here in Romania, people are often very kind and friendly. What this country lacks in wealth it makes up for in heart.