Day 5 – The Longest Day
Today was a long day. It started with our devotional at 6am and the bus did not leave the hospital until 630pm with some team members staying much longer to ensure full recovery after surgery for all patients. 27 operations. The last glimmers of sunset were a beautiful shade of pink and orange from particles in the air from the volcanic activity and earthquake from last night.
Some messages from our leaders.
Dr. Jed Nuchtern:
“The reason I do these trips is that these children really don’t have another way of getting cured and we are providing an essential service for them. Otherwise, they would have lifelong problems associated with these simple surgical problems they have. I also do it because for me, it’s a much more direct experience of why I went into medicine because there is less bureaucracy, so it allows us to function as a team in a very supportive way without a lot of extra stuff to worry about. And for me that just makes it a lot of fun as well.
I’ve been doing this for about eight years. and I’ve gone on ten trips with this organization. There are many aspects of this organization that I really like. While it is a US NGO, a lot of the work is based here in Guatemala with Guatemalan staff and volunteers running it. The organization really takes care of the patients. They make sure they have a safe place to stay when they’re waiting for their surgery and they are well supported throughout the process. I really like that.
As an example, some of the patients only speak K’iche’, one of the 30 Mayan languages. If that’s the case, then a volunteer who speaks K’iche’ will travel with them here and translate into Spanish so that our interpreters can translate from Spanish into English. It’s very difficult for those people to access care without a system like that working for them and I think that’s very important.
Finally, over everything else, they really focus on the process of care and making sure that they support our quality to provide good care which I also appreciate.”
Dr. Craig Belon:
“This mission is really awesome. This is the best functioning hospital and team that I’ve ever had the privilege to work for…because they don’t work for me. I definitely work for them. All these little kids don’t otherwise get surgeries and a lot of times, this is the first physician they’ve ever seen. So it is truly and deeply satisfying to be able to help all these little kids and to see the teams all come together and work as the best functioning team in healthcare period.”
On to our last day in the hospital tomorrow.
Mike Miniati
Team Blogger
