De la Montaña al Mar: June 2012 - Medical Aspects
On a recent mission to Honduras, I was struck by the difference in each team that goes out of AHMEN. We have feeding kitchens, construction, evangelism, medical clinics, Bible Study, seminars, eye clinics - the list seems to go on and on.
Our medical team consist of:
Dr. Delmer Montanya - a seasoned Honduran doctor who goes with any lucky AHMEN team that can “recruit” him.
Two RN’s from Alabama - one ER and one Pediatric cardiology
One navy corpsman
One premed student
One American Doc
good interpreters
A clown for the kids
Photographer
Our esteemed team leader
An unbelievable support team from our private, for profit, partner - more about this later.
We set up a very efficient pharmacy system with Doris Brady talking to each and every patient family group giving detailed instructions re. the medication, safety, etc.
The uniqueness of this particular team is, once again, unique.
Some 5 years ago a father, son, daughter, grandfather team moved from Canada to the mountains of Honduras to set up an electricity generating plant. During the initial construction phase, the family noticed the men they hired from local villages could only work about 3 or 4 hours before they simply gave out of energy. Were the people simply lazy, or was their another explanation? What they discovered was they were hungry and didn’t have enough protein in their diet. By simply feeding the workers a wholesome, Honduran diet the workers began to perform much better.
So, what does that have to do with our medical mission? The entrepreneurs from Canada became intimately associate with the village most of their workers come from, and notice lots of medical problems with little assess to health care. While La Esperanza is a good size town and has significant medical delivery system, go 30 minutes up any dirt road to surrounding villages and you find poverty, poor water systems, and poor access to health care.
Ron and Ernesto, the father/son Canadian team, became friends with Brent and Doris Brady and knew they participate in AHMEN and medical mission teams. You can see where this is going. Once De la Montaña al Mar went to La Espernaza one time, we were “hooked”. The people are “Indios”, nice, welcoming, and in need of medical help.
What is unique about this particular mission is the amalgamation of an AHMEN Medical team with a private, for profit business and the Honduran people that were a tremendous support and Dr. Delmer Montanya.
The medical part of the mission is pretty much like other missions I have been on - lots of kids, dirty drinking water leading to need for parasite medication, education, and development of clean water systems, men with machete injuries, women with arthritis, need for vitamins, etc.
Next year we have plans to expand the medical mission to other villages further “out from the main town” and expect the medical needs to increase.
I look forward to seeing the change in the long term health of these villages as this relationship between our AHMEN mission team and this private, for profit business continues to grow.
If this is something you might like to participate in, contact:
Michael Franklin: frank42@gmail.com
Kyle Grooms: kyle.grooms@yahoo.com
Magan Hamrick: magan.hamrick@yahoo.com
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