Relections on Making House Calls by Chelsea Cucura

Today we went to a Clinic in Las Juntas. They focus more on the Ebais team that makes up of doctors, nurses and A-tap that is short for Attention Technical Assistants of Primary Care. The Ebais team goes to different houses in communities that have a lot of people who need medical attention. Patients can also go to the clinics but the team of Ebais will go to the houses to make it easier for the patient rather then having them travel out of their way. When the team goes into the houses they also check the animals the patients may have such as dogs and make sure they have their latest vaccines and also check to see if the patients have food and check for anything else that is health related. They go to about 700 houses and see close to 300 patients per community. Ebais is on the bottom of the basic primary care pyramid following by the clinic, regional and specialist. I thought this was very unique and different from the United States because we don’t have doctors making house calls and checking the patient’s homes and making sure they are in a safe and healthy environment. This was very remarkable for me and I loved a lot how open the patients were to allow us to enter their homes and absorb what was happening. After we visited homes we then went and donated a wheelchair, walker, and crutches to three very nice people. The first person we visited was an older lady who had a hard time walking and we were able to provide her with a walker. Her response to receiving the walker was, “This is the best Christmas present ever.” After she said that my heart melted and immediately brought a smile to my face. The second person we saw was a guy who has diabetes and had to get his foot amputated. We were able to also provide him with a new pair of crutches to make it easier for him to walk. He was very happy and appreciative. Lastly, we saw another older gentlemen who needed a new wheelchair. The wheelchair he had at the time he actually made it. His wheelchair didn’t have a seat so he put a plastic seat inside where the normal seat would have been. Just reading that you can tell that it was very unsafe and dangerous for him to be sitting in that chair. When he saw his new wheelchair he again was very appreciative and very excited. He even offered us some of his lemons he had growing off a huge tree in his backyard. These three people were so lovely and so happy to see all of us and especially excited to have brand new items that they desperately needed.