Time For the Children

Many of the people who come to the clinic bring their children. It is a long journey and there is no other place for them. With 50-100 adults waiting for treatment we often have 50-60 children. The babies stay with the mothers, but those old enough to be turned loose are all over. Rather than have them crawling around the clinics or making trouble by acting like children, we set up a Children's Program. The kids can play games, color pictures and have supervised fun. This has been a real help to the parents and to us.Tara and Bron ran the program with the help of volunteers and Ron, who kept the tv and the fans working, helped with sports and special set-ups. 

Mom is helping color the pictures.

 
He's having fun while Mom and the baby see the Methodist doctors

Case Histories

We are trying to work with both critical and acute problems in our mission. The medical and dental clinics see this clearly as they treat everything from cuts and burns to fevers and diarrhea. Other complaints have included hernia, dysentery, infected insect bites, rheumatism, poor vision, tendonitis, parasites,scabies,diaper rash, lower back pain, urinary tract infections, arthritis, headaches, coughs, colds, infections in the ears, respiratory infections, nasal infections, worms, nerve damage due to old injuries, gastritis, allergies to many things, ears plugged with wax, contusions on the leg, all sorts of pre- and post-natal issues.

Everyone gets vitamins, most get worm medicine, and we give away a lot of cold and cough medicines. The pharmacy does a big business in antibiotics and medicines for small babies with diarrhea. We give out all sorts of aspirin, acetaminophen and ibuprofen. In addition, we have dispensed 30 – 40npairs of glasses each day.


Here are a couple of the more unusual cases we have had this week.

"The Boy Was Small, But the Pea Was Large"
A woman came to the clinic with her young son. She needed help from the doctors because he had a pea stuck in his nose. The boy and his grandmother were shelling peas and grandma was watching him and the baby. While she was distracted, the boy put a pea up his nose. Now it was stuck there. No amount of snorting or blowing could dislodge it, so she came to the Methodist Clinic for help. After discussing the situation a number of strategies developed, but none were successful.

Finally the case was handed over to David, the dentist. He is a practicing oral surgeon so has the techniques and experience for this delicate operation. He used a long thin dental tool and considerable skill to remove the pea. The boy (and the pea) went home. He was wiser (we hope) for the experience.

“Marco and the Woman with a Curse”
A woman came in appearing listless and tired. She was not able to look other people in the eye and complained of trouble sleeping. She was crying and generally seemed to be very troubled. She had been feeling this way for some time.

She told of going to church, but they told her there was nothing physically wrong with her. She was a sinner, they said, and her troubles were the result of her sinful nature. She needed to be freed from sin by confessing her unworthiness and receiving absolution. She tried, but this did not help her.

Next she want to see the curandero, the folk doctor. He said the problem was with her heart. Someone had put a curse on her and it was effecting her heart. This did not help much, so she came to the Methodist Clinic to see the doctors from the USA. Once our doctors determined that she had no unusual physical problems, her heart sounds and blood pressure we normal, they called in Rev. Marcos, one of the local Methodist pastors working with us. He spent about an hour talking and comforting her. When they were done she realized that the problem was spiritual and needed a spiritual cure, but not from a curandero. Hearing that she was a good person and that God loves her made a difference in her whole demeanor. Yes, Marcos' patience and pastoral care provided another way of curing some of the things that burden people. God is good, even in the heart of rural Panama.

">A Folk Cure for Toothache”
Overheard in the dental clinic: “The way we cure a toothache in our villages is this-- a man who has been bitten by a poisonous viper and lived must heart a nail uintil red hot. Then the hot nail is put in the hole in the tooth. This will stop the pain.” The patient said he preferred our dentistry, although it was also a little painful sometimes.

A REPORT FROM THE HEALTH WORKERS

At lunchtime today we had cooked yucca along with the usual menu of rice, beans and cooked meat. It tastes like potato. During lunch we had a chance to get a firsthand reports from two of the health promoter graduates, Celestina, from the village of Hacha and Otilia, from the village of Camaron Arriba. Celistina thanked us for the training. She has helped deliver 12 babies, given out medicines for diarrhea, taught sanitation and generally taught her village people about hand washing and techniques for purifying water.

Otilia has been doing the same things in her area. She also spoke about a woman who came to her for protection from an abusive husband. She could protect her because she has the respect of the people she works with due to being a graduate of the health promoter program. Otilia has placed ten latrines in homesteads. She says there are many more families who would like to have latrines. When some of the people from her village questioned the presence of bacteria in their water supply she held up her diploma and said, “I know! I have seen them at the Health Promoter School.”

It was gratifying to see that our mission has helped improve the life of many of the poorest people in Panama. There are more and more Ngobe villages with safe water and safe waste disposal. Injuries are cared for by our graduates and those with more serious problems are referred to the government clinics where the fact that the referral is from a Methodist Health Promoter is considered part of a chain of credible medical care.

Clinic Days

The first stop for patients at our clinic is the registration table. We ask them for their name, their complaint, and their village. Then they have vital medical information taken, height, weight, temperature and so forth. There are two exam stations for the doctors and medical lab and a vitamin dispensing station in the center same area. Everyone gets vitamins. Many people are treated for intestinal parasites, lice and scabies. For every adult we are seeing two to three children.

The Medical clinic is seeing about 120 patients per day. Of those approximately 8 a day were referred to specialists or special services. The must go to the health center in San Juan or San Felix to receive these services at a government clinic. The doctors at the government health centers know we are here, so they are open to referrals from our mission clinic.
When the people come to the Methodist Clinic it may be the first time the patients have gone anywhere outside their village for medical help. We also provide a centralized operation. There is a dentist, pharmacy and child care available in one place. The government clinics are much harder to get to, especially for people who must walk everywhere.

The dental clinic sees about 30 patients a day. Dave works with a couple of volunteer dental assistants who manage intake of the patients, help with sterilization of instruments, and to cheer up the children who are being treated. He is able to do extractions only. This woman is having anesthetic injected before treatment begins.

 

The pharmacy is directed by Mary Legg. We purchase prescription medicines from two mission supply houses, Blessings Inc. and Cross Link. They also offer medical supplies of all sorts. Over the counter medicines are donated by local churches. Volunteers package pills in quantities for distribution at the direction of the doctors. Cross Link also gave us several hundred pairs of glasses which were given to the Ngobe to help them see better. The women, especially, need to be able to see clearly when the sew and produce traditional bead-work handicrafts.
People are greeted at the door to the pharmacy by an older Ngobe gentleman, Pablo. He sits at the door and collects the referral cards, then directs people to wait until prescriptions are filled or someone is available to fit them with reading glasses.

Latrines, A Field Trip

A couple of years ago we began a project to put latrines in the villages of the students in the Health Promoter School. Most of the Ngobe villages are very primitive and sanitation is a major issue. We wanted to provide the households with simple toilet facilities. Rhett helped us make arrangements and select the families. We supply the basic materials for the construction, support posts, corrugated tin for the roof, rebar and sand, a plastic bucket that can be fashioned into a seat and the concrete for the floor. The family must dig the pit and do the actual construction work. Paula, the coordinator of the Comprehensive Community Health Program of the Methodist Church, takes applications from the communities, and everyone wants latrines. Once chosen a
government engineer goes and chooses a location for the latrine and materials are purchased, delivered and work begins. To date we have helped install 43 latrines, allowing the people to keep human waste under control and avoid polluting the ground water. The project has been funded by some of the churches and individuals from the mission teams.

We took the bus out to Cienaguita to unload equipment and supplies, then went on to a dirt road leading to
Karina's home. She is one of the health promoters. The road continued as a steep track, impassable by bus, so we set out on foot to go to a village where two latrines had been installed. The walk took us down, then up some very steep hills. We turned off into the village where the people were preparing for a wedding that afternoon. They led us down a steeper valley, across a small stream and up to the place where we saw the latrines. It was great to see how much care the people had taken with construction of these “essential facilities”.

It costs about $70 to construct one of these latrines. The nproject supplies the raw materials, posts and roofing tin. We also pay for the mason to install the concrete floor. Walls are up top the family and are constructed of materials of their choice. Currently there are requests for at least ten more from the villages of the Health Promoters. We can make a real difference if we can find ways like this to improve people's lives.

On the way back over the hills to the bus we took advantage of rides via horseback and truck. It was a long day, but we learned a lot about the people we will meet at the clinic tomorrow. we expect to be busy all week, but are glad we had the chance to see the village life and learn about the latrine project.

Sunday morning and it was time for church. After breakfast we walked the three blocks through the streets of David to the Christo Del Rey Iglesia Evangelica Methodista de Panama, (Christ the King Evangelical Methodist Church of Panama). Our project has a long history with this congregation. They have helped us with logistics, we eat most of our meals there, and members of the congregation help us with the mission by translating-- sometimes from Ngobe to Spanish to English-- and working alongside the nordasmericnos. We have had nurses, lab techs, and paramedics join the clinic team. Members of the church also will assist with intake, record keeping, the Health Promoter's class and the Bible School for children. Because of this partnership we can say the Panama Project is a cooperative effort of United Methodists and Panamanian Methodists.

Church services are lively affairs. There is a lot of singing, a time for prayers, praise and preaching. Our two team members from the Mexican Border Ministry in Texas were able to add special things to the service. This morning Miguel had been asked by the pastor to bring a message and Juan provided music on his guitar. Miguel's personal testimony was a moving account of his own faith journey into ministry. Juan and Miguel sang and then the entire group joined them for a couple of songs. Worship in a foreign place and another language can be an exercise in connectionalism. We are not only connected by friendship and a shared interest in bringing better health to the Ngobe Indians, but we are connected by our common Methodist heritage and by the Holy Spirit.

Following the service we met Patricia Magyar from the general Board of Global Ministries who will help with the Health Education program as she observes our whole project in order to see how we are working at promoting community based health service. After lunch we headed out to Cienaguita to unload supplies and began setting up for the week at the community center. When we had unloaded the buses and done the preliminary set-up we went further out to see a Ngobe village where latrines have been built as one of “put it into practice” community health projects.

Sharing in many ways with our friends in Panama is a joy. Through worship and conversation we reconnected and prepared for the busy week to come.

LUGGAGE, LUGGAGE, LUGGAGE. . .

The group began the journey to David at O'Hare airport where Charles sorted out and tagged luggage. Each person is allowed two checked bags and a carry-on and a briefcase/purse/laptop bag. We had packed all the supplies for the clinics into large suitcases so each member of the team could check two supply cases as their checked baggage. Charles was kept busy numbering, collecting inventory sheets and then moving all that luggage through the airport check-in and security screening. We would see it again until it, hopefully, arrived in Panama City.

The flights took us through Atlanta. . . stopped for a meal. . . and onto our final destination in PC. We arrived there about 9:45 PM to humidity and heat. Even at that hour it was almost oppressive. Almost. Also very welcome to a group who had left the snows of the mid-west only hours before.

The bags came off the conveyors and were checked to be sure we had them all, then passed through customs x-rays and allowed into Panama. Rhett Thompson met us at the arrival hall and directed us to the curbside area where we loaded the luggage into vans. Personal gear went with the people, supplies went off to be taken to David the next day. When it was all piled up on the curb it made quite a mountain of stuff. Most of it will be used in the medical clinic or the health promoter school to comfort and care for people. If you are going to import something into a foreign country, hope, healing and health are all worth bringing.