Noreen Prokuski is a Certified Nurse Midwife from Burr Ridge, Illinois.  She spent three weeks in the fall of 2014 volunteering at NRI General Hospital in Vijayawada, India, where Project HOPE is helping the hospital achieve an important accreditation. Prokuski focused on hygiene requirements and requirements specific to OBGYN patients.

Project HOPE is assisting NRI General Hospital in Vijayawada, India in the State of Andhra Pradesh to achieve accreditation with the INDIA NationalAccreditation Board for Hospitals or NABH. To do this, the hospital has to pass a stringent checklist of more than 600 critical objectives crucial for safe patient care. This is no small task, since NRI is a sprawling 1,000 bed charity facility serving a rural and low-income population. The hospital is a much needed resource to the many small villages in this rural, agricultural area of India.

As a Project HOPE volunteer, I was given a tour of the hospital and introduced to staff members.  I met staff of at all levels of the hospital – from the kitchen staff to the hospital administrator.  As a nurse midwife, I was most interested in the labor, antepartum and postpartum wards, and I was warmly received by the patients, nurses, medical students, residents and attending doctors staffing those wards.

The staff listened earnestly to suggestions of how they could upgrade their practices to better serve their patients and achieve hospital accreditation. They were extremely happy to have us working with them and to discover how we practice medicine in the United States.  

In the upcoming months, Project HOPE will continue to send nursing and medical volunteers to help these hardworking professionals achieve their goals and continue to be able to serve their needy population.