Carol's Blog 3 WITH PHOTOS USF College of Nursing

The forgotten people behind the wall...

Friday, March 16, 2012 was our last day of clinical in Panama. We went to a psychiatric facility. The facility resembled an old run down prison. People were separated according to male and female and then further separated by the severity of their illness. Many of the patients had been there for several years. They either had no family or had family that was unable or unwilling to care for them. Some of the patients couldn’t wait to interact with us, others never did. One nurse told us that the patients had become like family members to the staff. Staff was minimal and of the equipment was old and run down. There was an ambulance with a flat tire. In the inner court yard a naked man climbed from one side of the fence to the other. Mattresses were thrown in the court yard. A man lay sleeping on the concrete in a patient gown. It was one of the saddest scenes I have ever seen…We played a game with the patients with a beach ball. The patients told us their names and where they were from. After that we had an art session and the patients drew. I did a few simple addition problems with two patients and found they could not add numbers that required carrying digits to the next space. I met an 18 year old who seemed to be fairly high functioning. He enjoyed hitting the beach ball back and forth with the crowd of patients and students. We ended the afternoon with a game of limbo, dancing and musical chairs. It is my hope that we made their day a little brighter. I enjoyed the day and was happy to have the opportunity to see some of these patients laughing and smiling.

This patient is mute and the staff never knew her real name, she was always referred to as 'the mute'. The nurses recently baptized her and gave her a name. This is one of the sweetest nurses I have ever met.