Other Columns on Health-Related Topics
Honduras Mission Trip
When I was asked last summer to be a part of a medical mission trip to Honduras, I had no idea how life changing it would be. I had some reservations about flying to a foreign country, but I felt this was something I needed to do. My church, First Presbyterian in Malvern, financed the trip and commissioned Terry McCormack, RN, and myself to go, which was truly a blessing.
Dr. Lee Archer, a neurologist, and his wife Nancy of Little Rock along with Sebastian and Ada Malgar of Honduras organized the trip.
The group consisted of 13 doctors and 9 nurses with backgrounds in ER, Neurology, Geriatrics, Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology, Ophthalmology, ENT, Urology, Rehab and Surgery. We also had two dentists, two pharmacists, one audiologist and numerous other non-medical personnel.
On January 14th we arrived in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and then took a five hour “school bus” ride to San Marcos, Ocotepeque. Part of our group went to another location, Cololaca Honduras, about an hour away. We held a medical clinic for 4 days at the Evangelical Meninite Church close to the center of town. In those four days, we saw around 1800 patients between the two locations.
On the first day of clinic I had some idea of what to expect after hearing stories of previous years. I figured we would see a lot of people, give out some vitamins, a few other medications and maybe even give out some glasses. It was so much more!
Two particular patients seem to stand out on this trip. One patient was a 90 year old woman who had a very difficult time walking and could not stand without assistance. Her caregiver brought her in for various other medical conditions, but we felt like we could make her more mobile. Dr. David Bass, a geriatric specialist from New Orleans, and I enlisted the help of the locals to build a walker. This would be an easy task in the United States to go to the local medical supply store and purchase what we needed, but not that easy in San Marcos. We were able to commission a homemade walker for twelve dollars. Twelve dollars would have been easily wasted at a local restaurant or a trip to the movies, but twelve dollars to this lady was the difference between being able to move independently or being completely immobile.
The other patient that is still vivid in my mind was a 45 year old woman who came into the clinic for a regular checkup and the doctor noticed that she was having a very difficult time hearing. He sent her to the audiologist for further testing. The doctor noticed her difficulty and removed his hearing aide and placed it in the patient’s ear. The interpreter sitting beside her rustled his paper and a look of amazement came over the patient’s face and she said “I haven’t heard that sound in thirty years!” Wow! Something as simple as a hearing aide will change this woman’s life forever. She was fitted for a hearing aide and will soon receive it and a years worth of batteries.
I believe that these two stories stand out in my mind so much because it took a twelve dollar walker and a hearing aide to change their lives; two things that we can so easily obtain here with a trip to our doctor.
This mission trip made me realize just how blessed I am in my life and how much I take for granted. The wonderful people that we saw in the clinic had such a positive outlook on life. By our standards, they were extremely poor, but yet were so grateful, positive and had such an outstanding lease on life. One woman said, “You don’t get to be my age, without being happy everyday!” I believe that is advice that we could all use.
Brent Fikes, RN, is the Nurse Manager of the Rehabilitation Program at HSC Medical Center.
