DOCARE in Guatemala - 2009
By Joe Giorgianni
DOCARE, is a humanitarian organization founded in 1961 by an osteopathic physician and consists of all-volunteer personnel. DOCARE, since its conception, has provided medical services to literally thousands of patients in various impoverished parts of the world, such as those found in Guatemala, Peru and the Yucatan. Medical services, including gynecological, optical, manipulative therapy, foot care, pharmacological, and dental care, as well as multiple and varied pharmaceuticals are offered at no charge to impoverished patients who perhaps have never seen a physician or other medical personnel prior to that provided by DOCARE. Not too uncommon in a Third World country. DOCARE's efforts are and will continue to be supplemented with bountiful donations of used eyeglasses, collected and supplied by Lions Clubs around the world. This incredible generosity enables many to simply have better vision. And grateful thanks to Heart to Heart International and Blessings International for generous donations of pharmaceuticals.
What does it mean to a person who lives in a home with a dirt floor, no running water, no sanitary facilities and perhaps no electricity to receive something as important as heath care? How could anyone who lives in the comfort of a heated and/or air-conditioned home, stocked with abundant food, running water, and clean clothing relate to a person who most likely cannot read nor write? Clearly more than eighty percent of those treated in villages like San Juan Comalapa, San Jose Paoquil, and Patzicia would be considered illiterate by most standards. How can these people be made to understand that they must help themselves if they are to stay healthy? That they must eat healthier, use better and proper hygiene, keep cleaner bodies. Often, they, these impoverished people don't understand, or simply cannot accept changes in their culture. A treatment or medication given by a caring, concerned DOCARE volunteer is provided with every intention of helping, even curing an ailing patient. But how effective can a single manipulative adjustment, a one time medication, or consultation be? Do the patients seen and treated by the veritable vineyard of DOCARE volunteers, people who give so much of their time, talent, and money, benefit beyond the single moment of relief when an adjustment is made to an aching back? The life style of these people simply will not permit them to take it easy, or not lift anything heavy, as a doctor might prescribe. Their culture simply will not allow it. Does a mother with child cleaving to her chest feel better knowing the pills given to her sick child will make her feel better? The obvious answer would be, yes, it does make her feel better. But for how long will she feel better? Will the medication or treatment keep her child from becoming ill next week? Next month? What happens when the medication is depleted, or the child becomes ill after DOCARE leaves? To where will this mother then turn?
In a part of the world where the average income for a family is approximately five hundred Quetzales ($63.00) per month, it is understandable that these indigenous people would be extremely reluctant to part with two hundred Quetzales ($25.00) to see a private doctor for any malady. This is the average cost to visit a private medical facility in most of these small pueblos. Choices must be made between getting medical help and buying frijoles or other critical staples in their lives. Between getting medical help and buying minutes for a cell phone. Cell phone? Cell phones, I learned, are often given away by various phone companies to entice the purchase of minutes of service. Every "tienda", or corner store, sells phone cards representing myriad companies. Many who live in this impoverished part of the world who will not spend their precious Quetzales to improve their health will spend them to use a cell phone.
But having a cell phone, even for someone as poor as those who live in the many small villages, has its advantages. For example, word was quickly spread throughout the region that DOCARE was treating sick people. In fact, more than twelve hundred people stood in long lines to receive medical help. Many, however, who lived several kilometers from where DOCARE was set up, were simply unable to make the trip for various reasons. One person, in Aldea Simajuleu, approximately twenty kilometers from San Juan Comalapa, was simply too sick to make the trip. Dr. Desai, in conjunction with Dr. Shima, made the decision to send Dr. Rusco to the patient's home. Making the trip with Dr. Rusco was Angela Mejicanos, a volunteer translator, Erin Smith, a student from KCUMB, and myself, to document the visit. Guatemalan National Police graciously shared a very rough ride in their police pick-up.
Arriving at the patient's home in Aldea Simajuleu, we found a forty-year old woman lying on a soiled mattress spread across a dirt floor. Extremely ill, Dr. Rusco concluded that without immediate care in a medical facility, this exceedingly dehydrated and anemic patient would die with forty-eight hours. Solemnly, the family heard the doctor's opinion through translation.
Later, that same day, after arriving back in San Juan Comalapa, it was learned that the family had decided that the ride in the back of a pickup truck to any medical facility would be more than the patient could endure. The family had simply made the decision to forgo medical treatment, which no doubt was a death sentence for the patient.
After the signing of the Peace Accord on December 29, 1996, bringing an end to a civil war lasting thirty-six years, longer than any Cold Civil War in Latin American history, one that took nearly 200,000 Guatemalan lives, clothing factories, built mostly by the Koreans looking for cheap labor and low taxes, became widespread throughout Guatemala. With the dissolution of the military, labor was abundant. Factories all over the country were offering jobs to many who worked laborious hours for a few Quetzales a day.
With a newly elected government in Guatemala, however, the politicos concluded that more taxes were needed to run the country, and the owners of the Korean factories needed to pony up more. Unhappy, or perhaps unwilling to comply, many of the Korean owned factories simply closed in search of a country that would offer better tax incentives and cheap labor. The result was thousands of Guatemalan workers were left unemployed, contributing further to the despondency and impoverished conditions of the country.
What is the clue to understanding a country rife with despair and disrepair? Their poverty declaims to the outside world yet all remains the same but for the generosity of organizations like DOCARE.
Today, in this very problematic country, new challenges arise with alarming speed. HIV/AIDS, for example, is now considered epidemic, with increasing numbers of those infected with the HIV virus also infected with Tuberculosis.
Birth control, is yet another problem in Guatemala, as explained by Josephine Sut, director of APROFAM, a family planning clinic, and wife of Antolin Lopez, director of ACIDICO (Association for Development of Integrated Communities). "The family planning program", claims Ms. Sut, "provides birth control programs, but is often refused by younger women because of embarrassment." Although declining, Guatemala still has the highest number of births per thousand of all Central American countries.
So who benefits more from the generosity of organizations like DOCARE? Those impoverished men, women, and children who stand in a line for hours waiting for the opportunity to be seen, treated, and medicated, or those who provide this generous portion of humanitarian relief? Of the approximately sixty-five American doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and volunteers who made the pilgrimage to the remote villages of this beautiful country, some thirty-five were medical students. Students, who most likely will never see in their American practices what they will see or have seen in Guatemala, no doubt have gained invaluable experience. Perhaps they have gained a perspective on healthcare not possible to be learned from a medical book or classroom.
Whether a student, doctor, nurse, volunteer, or others who partook in DOCARE-Guatemala-2009, all most certainly returned to their homes with a feeling of gratefulness for what we have in America.
1,365 words. February 26, 2009
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