This is the hospital where I work as the clinical dietitian. The hospital is a 30 bed facility which serves patients in the YK delta. The YK delta is the size of Oregon, and has 55 Native villages. (More on the villages later). Our services are pretty impressive for an area as remote as Bethel, but we are quite limited as you can imagine. The hospital has an emergency room, obstetrics unit, pediatric unit (9 beds), inpatient unit, and outpatient clinics. We do not have an Intensive care unit. If someone is very ill, they are flown to Anchorage.
As I said, Bethel serves about 55 villages. These villages each have a small village clinic where health aids provide medical care. These health aids receive training in Bethel and do everything from birthing babies to giving immunizations. When a sick patient arrives at the village clinic, the health aid must follow a manual to identify the patent's problem. The health aids then call the doctors in Bethel if needed. Alaska is the only state that has these health aids.
No comments:
Post a Comment