Blanca's Story

Hey, that’s my patient. As we walked toward the hospital entrance this morning, Dr. Schepel immediately recognized the baby from Wednesday’s check-in, now cradled in the arms of his sobbing mother. I can’t afford the medicine for my son and he’s not going to be able to have the operation. Oh yes you can, we all thought. We weren’t going to let a few dollars worth of antibiotics deprive the boy of his life altering surgery. Besides, Rotaplast already provides follow-up meds. There was more to the story.

Through Blanca’s tears we heard that her mother had just died yesterday, she has five more children at home and she and her husband have no money to take their son back there. We went inside to see what we could do. I learned that her son, Jesus, has scabies and was scratched from the surgery schedule. Rotary volunteers paid for the scabies medication and also provided bus fare for them.

I told a few other team members about the family’s misfortunes and a surgeon who overheard me said that scabies is really not a problem that would stop him from doing surgery. I was concerned there had been some miscommunication. Did the pediatrician know that? Was the family still here?

Feeling conflicted about getting involved in medical decisions, I went down to pediatrics to find out if there was yet more to the story. As if the family didn’t have enough problems already, it turned out that Jesus is also suffering from severe anemia and that’s why the surgery was cancelled.

The good news is that another cleft lip and palate clinic is scheduled for Antigua in July. Blanca told me it’s a six hour journey to get there. They have to walk from their home to catch an early enough bus to bring them back to Guatemala City, then catch another one to Antigua. I only hope there’s enough money for Jesus to get the food he needs to build up his iron.