CHW Medical Missions Blog

The View From Your Mission

We've asked each of the mission participants to write about their expereience of service, and how they've been changed by it.

Beginning Monday these reflections will be posted here, so keep checking back!

Quote for the Day

"Diversity is the sometimes painful awareness that other people, other races, other voices, other habits of mind, have as much integrity of being, as much claim on the world as you do. And I urge you, amid all the differences present to the eye and mind, to reach out to create the bond that... will protect us all. We are meant to be here together."

William M. Chase, 1849-1916
American Artist and Teacher

Guatemala City Hospital

On our last day in Guatemala City we had the unique opportunity to visit a private hospital run by the Daughters of Charity. The hospital is beautiful and the work the sisters are doing there is extraordinary.

One service the sisters are providing is care for severely malnourished children. Kids will stay in the hospital for up to three months and their parents will receive nutrition education that will help them keep their children healthy when they go home. 

The sisters keep a wall of pictures of the kids when they first arrive at the hospital. It's tragic:

But with the care and dedication of the sisters, the kids do very well. Here's a couple of photos of the kids they're caring for now:

 

It's heartwarming to know the Daughters of Charity are there, making sure these kids get the best start they can.

Returning Reflection

Each of the members of the team have been asked to reflect on their experience of serving on this mission. I'll bring you their thoughts in future posts.

For now, here is the closing reflection sent to the team upon their return from Esquipulas:

The Formidable Problem
Charity reform is not transmitted through books and at assemblies but in the home of the poor, kneeling at his bed, suffering from the same cold as he does, and discovering the secret of a grief-stricken heart in the course of a friendly conversation.

When we have accomplished this ministry, not for months, but over long years; when we have thus studied the poor at home, at school, at the hospital, not only in one city but in several, in whatever condition God placed him, then we can start to know the formidable problem of misery.

Then we are entitled to propose serious measures.

- Blessed Frederic Ozanam, 1848

Contemplation: What have you learned from being in the homes and communities of the poor? What measures would you propose to relieve their suffering?

Promoting Education

As we are all returning to our lives I want to bring you some additional stories and photos we didn't have time to tell while in country. First, some of the reflections from Sandra Ramos, manager of community education and benefit at Chandler Regional and Mercy Gilbert Medical Centers.

Sandra was a member of our mission team last year, working primarily in discharge and community education. This year she took on the added responsibility of leading our Red Team clinics. She did a phenomenal job.

In her words:

What I really like about this visit that makes it different from last year was the education we did with the health promoters. We had already started to build a rapport from last year so they knew us and welcomed us back. This year we were able to broadened our topics to include: what to do when your child gets sick, the danger signs in pregnancy, diabetes, nutrition and anemia, diarrhea, dental care, and a physician Q&A. The promoters responded very well to these talks and asked a lot of good questions, especially about what to do with fevers or seizures in children.

I was particularly impressed with two of the health promoters, Selvin and Claudia, who applied the fluoride varnishes at all of our pediatrics clinics during the week. When we had our final education session with all of the promoters we wanted to train the whole group on how to apply the varnishes and Selvin and Claudia, who are teenagers, stood up and gave the demo and the talk. They shined. They were so great and learned it so quickly and really were enthusiastic about providing this service to the children.

I think education is where it’s at in these missions and this is what is going to make a difference in these communities. We need to give them the tools they need to go out into the outlying areas and teach others how to help in their communities. The things we see as basic are all new information to the people here. One of the health promoters told us that they were brushing kids' teeth whenever they came to the clinic, but that they were using the same toothbrush on all the kids! The educational piece is the only way to get this information to the people. We have to train their community leaders to then push that teaching out.

Overall I’m feeling energized because as I left Esquipulas I realize all the additional topics we can cover in the future and maybe organize a little conference for the promoters. They want to learn more about HIV and STDs, about brain development and SIDS, nutrition, and simple things you can do to improve the health of your child. They're hungry for anything we can do to help them improve their circumstances.

Departing Thoughts on Service to the Poor

We leave for Guatemala City this morning. This day is always bittersweet. Though we are all anxious to see our friends and family there is so much more work to do here that we wish we could stay longer. We all strive at CHW to provide quality care to all who come to us, but we have always placed special attention on the needs of the poor and disenfranchised.

Pope John Paul II once said, "The sins of the world can be read in the faces of the poor." And he is right. The poor have their independence restricted; they must suffer inconveniences that compromise their dignity. This is why we pay special attention to the needs of the poor -- to try to correct this injustice.

One of our morning reflections during our time here was a reading from St. Vincent de Paul: "You will find that charity is a heavy burden to carry. It is only because of your love - only your love - that the poor will forgive you the bread you have given." It is difficult, at first, to reconcile our work here with the need to be forgiven by the people we have served. But after being here for a week and looking into the eyes of our patients it is clear.

We are all equal in the eyes of God. On that spiritual, and some might say more important, level we understand ourselves to be the same. And yet our material world does not reflect that spiritual truth. Our social structures do not support the inherent equality of all people we understand to be a fact. So when we seek to perform acts of charity we must be careful not to assume the posture of feeling sorry for the poor or bemoaning their misfortune. Our acts must come from a place of deep love -- we are working to affirm the inherent dignity and worth of every human being, just as we want ours affirmed.

Feel free to add your thoughts or further contemplations on this reflection via the comments link at the bottom of this post.

We want to thank all of you for following our journey with us and posting your well wishes. This was a remarkable journey and we're humbled that you chose to take some time out of your day to join us.

We also want to thank Dr. Noah Marco, Dr. Gene Fussel, Sheri (in Dr. Boyd's office), the staff at the Folsom Family Clinic, including Nancy Link for her long-distance nutrition consultation, and anyone else we forgot to mention by name for helping us locate a pediatric orthopedic surgeon for the beautiful young girl we saw yesterday who is suffering from clubbed feet.

Keep checking in on the blog from time to time as we'll share updates with you on the status of some of our patients and on our next medical mission. Until then, a few more pictures:

 

  

 

Las Peñas

One of the teams was at Las Peñas today. The little building where the clinic was held materialized after we first descended through the fog into a lush, green valley and then went back up again. The clinic was supposed to last only a little longer than half a day but even with the shortened time the team came together and provided as many doctor visits as other longer days as well as tested many children for anemia.

Many of the children were tested last year and found to be anemic. The local volunteers or "health promoters" did a great job in following up with the families of the children and brining them back again this year to be tested.

Theo and one of the health promoters were trained on how to fit people with reading glasses (no, those were not the glasses the little boy ended up with but the picture was too perfect to pass up).

And of course, an entry like this would not be complete without more pictures of the children.

 

A Day in the Life of a Guatemalan Mother

Susan Whitten blogs again:

Imagine walking two to three miles (or even farther) carrying an infant, with two or three other children all under the age of 6 or 7 to see an foreign doctor? And you dress each one in their Sunday clothes which by the time you finally get to the clinic are caked with dirt and dust. And then have to stand in line for maybe two hours or more with little or no access to water or food?  Well, welcome to the day in the life of this typical Mother. This humbles you beyond words.

And just as with mother's everywhere, you want a better life for each and everyone of your kids. I watch these moms and hear the pleading in their voices as they ask a question or tell their story.

They may have had to leave other children at home this time because it's coffee harvesting time and her other kids have to help bring in and make ready the crops so they can eek out a living.

Now place in your minds eye a groupof American doctors, nurses and others who have just arrived in a better way than you, riding in the back of a "cattle" truck stacked high with bags of hope.

You watch these people get off the truck and take what seems like an eternity to be ready to receive you all the while you are trying to quiet you own worried soul and restless, tired, and hungry children.

Or worse you are sick yourself and need somehow to manage being in two lines so you send your three year old with or without an older sibling or friends' older child to wait in another line hoping that these foreign people who may or may not resemble you will "love and care for" your child as much as you do.

And here is some stranger who will poke and prod your child and you hold your breath to hear from these people that your child is going to be ok. You get medicines to give your sick one(s) and have to carry that home as well without a purse or buggy or backpack.

And heaven forbid you hear the words, you need to take your child to the hospital, because then you have no time to run home to pack a bag or drop off the "others".  You have to GO now because somehow someone will give you a ride.

This scene is played out each day we are here trying our best to serve. It is and can be overwhelming. But we do our best and pray for ways that we can truly help.

For the last five days this has been our work. And on Friday when we wearily get on a bus "with seats", we will each take home one of these very special mental pictures of some one or two mothers and children who touched us eitherbecause of their hopeful eyes even in the face of overwhelming challenges or the child's smile that touched our hearts and will never leave our memory.

For some of us this is why we come and why we will return. It takes this global "caring" to try to make one mother's burden just a bit lighter. 

Consider Laughing

Susana Sanchez-Perez, RN, BSN is a pediatrics ICU nurse at Northridge Hospital Medical Center. She served on this mission as our discharge education nurse and also conducted health education with the Health Promoters. Her mission experience, in her words:

I'm loving this. I love teaching so I'm getting to do what I love. I'm having a lot of fun.

I hope that as this mission continues over the years that we can delve deeper and deeper into the communities here, to see more of the Mayan peoples, and deliver care where it may be even more difficult to access roads.

One experience that stands out for me is the day an older lady - about 70 - came in to get fitted for a pair of eyeglasses. We tried on several strengths and at last I pulled out a pair of the thickest bifocals I'd ever seen. The moment she tried them on she exclaimed, "I can see!" Everyone around us laughed, and so did we.

As part of the education I'm doing with the Health Promoters is to clear up misunderstandings. Most of the people here think that diabetes is a sugar disease. It's not. So I teach them about the difference between carbohydrates and protein and what foods they should eat more of. I'm also teaching them about how to identify when a baby is sick with a virus, and it will pass, and when a baby has a bacterial infection and needs to be taken to a doctor.

These are very modest people so some of the teaching I'm doing is awkward for them (like when I teach the women to do self-breast exams). But we can laugh together. They laugh at me a lot, actually, but I also know that they're hearing me.

Yo No Soy Gringa, Yo Soy Margarita!

When we were selected for this year’s mission we were told many times to be prepared to be flexible and take on many jobs. This advice comes from some of the team members that have come back for a second year such as Peggy Styer, senior director of CHW supply chain management. She was regularly seen helping out in the pharmacy and lab, fitting glasses, and handing out toothbrushes.

Peggy comments that last year, being the first, was really disorienting at the beginning. This year she had to order and prepare supplies for three clinics (including peds) instead of just one from last year. Even with this extra burden she says she felt much more prepared for what was to come and started the week in Guatemala being able to see things from a different perspective. "This year I was able to embrace the culture more and better take note of what was going on in each of the clinics," said Peggy.

She was surprised to see that this second year provided even more learning. Of particular interest to her was seeing that not everything went perfectly but that it all went very well, that the mission and the participants were (and are) making a difference.

Another important learning for her had been to see the positives and negatives compared to our own standard of living in the United States. She came to realize just how much the people here (and many in our own country) need and just how much each of us do not need to be happy. In her words, "Happiness is being free of disease, happiness is living in a healthy environment and happiness is having all of your family and friends with you."

Each person has a deep need to be recognized and appreciated as a person rather than a number or a patient. Each person has a right to some basic things. These are some of the beliefs she carries and feels that this mission has re-affirmed them in many ways. Because of this, when the little children would call her "gringa" ("foreign woman" or "woman from the U.S.") she would say back to them, "Yo no soy gringa, yo soy Margarita!" which translated is "I am not a foreign woman, I am Margarita!" The meaning, however, was much more significant "I am more than a title or category, I am a person with a name and so are you."