Tamanique volunteer meeting

An important part of the planning for every PazSalud General Medical Mission is preparing the local volunteers for the 6-day experience of hosting and executing a large-scale medical event for their community.  This generally involves multiple meetings of team-building exercises and training sessions to help them identify their volunteer roles and what their specific tasks will be in addition to an orientation on the overall project.

To begin the process, I recently met with local volunteers to explain who PazSalud is, what we do and what our medical missions typically look like.  I will build on this meeting with our local coordinator and try to meet with the volunteers on a regular basis until the start of the mission.

Talking to the volunteers

An introduction and team-building exercise

Watching the PazSalud video on the 2013 General Medical Mission/2014 Eye Surgery Mission

Visit to San Rafael Hospital

It's never too early to start planning the 2015 missions so our local coordinator, Maira Romero, long-time PazSalud friend and nurse, Rosy Melara, and I went to visit San Rafael Hospital in Santa Tecla in August to talk to with them about the eye surgery mission we would like them to host in May.

We met with the new hospital director, Dr. Yeerles Luis Angel Ramírez, to introduce ourselves and PazSalud and talk about how we could work together in 2015 to provide cataract and pterygium surgeries to the patients of Tamanique (the location of our 2015 General Mission in February).

Then on Kathy Garcia’s recent trip to El Salvador took the opportunity to tour the facilities in greater detail and begin mapping out our patient flow and personnel location.  Rosy, a long-time San Rafael Hospital employee, joined us to introduce us to her former coworkers.  This will be PazSalud’s fifth time working in San Rafael Hospital so at this point it feels like a second home.

Maira, Dr. Yeerles, Rosy

Operating room in San Rafael

Rosy and Kathy touring the operating area

Post-surgery eye exams

After every eye surgery mission PazSalud works with a local ophthalmologist to provide two 'controls', or follow-up eye exams, for every patient to ensure their surgery was sound and everything is healing on schedule.  This year we were fortunate to work with Dr. Jule, an excellent physician who, along with his son, runs a private eye clinic in San Salvador where they saw our patients.

We completed both controls in June and I'm happy to report that our surgeries were exceptionally successful.  Many patients even see 20/40 in their operated eye.  Dr. Jule provided every patient with a careful exam and took the time to time to answer their myriad questions.  Some patients needed additional eye drops, some had their stitches removed and because of pre-existing medical conditions, some were slower to heal than others.  But the vast majority of our patients talked about their overwhelming joy at being able to see again for the first time in many years.

Dr. Jule's son examining a patient

Dr. Jule and a patient

Checking the healing process

Our patients in Dr. Jule's waiting room

Happy patients