1st Check-Up

Two weeks after their surgeries PazSalud brings every patient back into San Salvador for a check-up with a local ophthalmologist to ensure the surgery was successful and provide them with any additional medications and instructions they might need.  To ensure the best outcome possible, we also provide them a check-up six weeks after their initial surgery as well.  

A few patients needed reminders of the importance of using their eye drops as prescribed and others needed supplemental medications but overall everyone is right on track in their recovery process.

Dr. Jule examining a patient

General Medical Mission - 2016 Comasagua

A huge 'thank you' to everyone who made the 2016 General Medical Mission in Comasagua so successful!  From the amazing institutional support of PeaceHealth to our dedicated and incredible U.S. and local volunteers, thank you, we couldn't do it without a complete team effort. 

We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to serve the beautiful people of this needy Salvadoran community and we ended the week with impressive numbers:

Total patients – 1,477

Total consults – 1,886

   General medicine - 889

   Pediatrics – 269

   Women's clinic – 114

   Optometry – 614

Patients signed up for eye surgery – 78

Water filter referrals – 76

Medical referrals and special cases – 107

Special order glasses – 18

In addition to the numbers, we met some wonderful people in a gorgeous mountain setting, made some life-long friends, impacted people's lives, challenged ourselves in unique ways and had an unforgettable experience serving a population desperately in need of quality, caring medical attention.

*thanks to Wayne Ause for the great pictures.

Special Order Glasses for Tamanique Patients

During PazSalud’s recent joint optometry mission with the Lions Club of Bellingham, WA, our optometrists identified patients from Tamanique who require prescriptions that we could not fill from our supply of donated glasses.  In these cases, our mission team volunteers will take their prescriptions and have lenses specially made for them in the U.S. at no cost to the Salvadoran patient.

A very special thanks to Walman Optical who so generously made and donated the glasses and Ken Henderson whose efforts made it all possible for me to recently deliver customized, special-ordered glasses to some very needy patients.  Their new glasses enable them to see the world like they never have before and the smiles on their faces tell you all you need to know about how happy they are.

Donation to local NGO

Thanks to a generous donation from some of our providers, I had the pleasure of passing on this much-needed equipment to a local NGO that provides subsidized and free eye care to poor patients in Santa Ana, El Salvador.  The were thrilled to receive the devices which will help them provide better, more comprehensive eye examinations to the population they serve.

Autorefractor

Thanks to the generosity of our many donors, PazSalud was able to purchase a new autorefractor for use on all our missions in El Salvador!  This machine enables us to accurately determine the prescription glasses a patient needs as well as precisely measure various parts of the eye.

This amazing new piece of equipment will help us bring better vision to many, many Salvadorans who could never afford prescription glasses let alone a visit to an ophthalmologist or optometrist.  Thank you to everyone who helped make it possible!

Picking up the autorefractor from customs at the airport

The distributor setting up the machine

Testing it out

 

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

ASAPROSAR

On one of Kathy's recent trips to El Salvador we were invited to visit ASAPROSAR; a local NGO based in Santa Ana.  The mission of ASAPROSAR is to work with the neediest families in El Salvador to improve their quality of life and empower them through health care, youth leadership training, environmental and nutritional education, micro-credit, and community development.  Among their many development programs, ASAPROSAR specializes in visual health and has a permanent clinic in Santa Ana that Kathy and I visited for the day.  The scale of their efforts is impressive and their dedication is inspiring and perhaps PazSalud will have an opportunity to partner with them on an eye surgery mission one day.

Entrance to ASAPROSAR

Eye clinic entrance

Exam room

Eyeglasses shop

Kathy and a nurse in one of their operating rooms

Operating room

 

Gustavo sees again

Darren writes:

PazSalud did a joint eye mission in Estanzuelas with the Bellingham Central Lions Club in September, 2013.  During the 3-day event we screened 325 patients for glasses, readers and potential cataract surgery.  Shortly after the mission we learned that EyeCare International, an NGO that provides cataract surgeries, would be coming to Puerto la Libertad, El Salvador for a 2-week exam and surgery mission.  Kathy and I contacted them and arranged to bring some of our patients to their medical brigade.

Gustavo qualified for surgery and EyeCare International removed one of his two cataracts.  After recovering from surgery I took him to his follow-up appointments at ASAPROSAR (a local NGO specializing in low-cost eye care for Salvadorans) in San Miguel and everything checked out well.  This is this first time he has been able to see clearly in years so naturally, he is all smiles and thrilled with the results.  

An Atol Fiesta

Darren writes: 

Anyone who has ever served on a mission will testify to the remarkable humbleness, kindness and graciousness of the Salvadoran patients and volunteers at our missions.  One of the best parts of working for PazSalud in El Salvador is getting to continually interact with all those incredible people, many of whom I see on regular basis. 

During our recent eye surgery mission in Cojutepeque we performed a successful pterygium surgery on Maria Cruz (shown in the photo above).  One day she called me up to invite me to her house to drink atol, a typical, seasonal Salvadoran drink made from corn.  Because it's in season we also enjoyed some fresh ears of boiled corn-on-the-cob.  I made the trip to Maria's house with Yesenia - the indispensable local coordinator from both of PazSalud's missions this year - and her daughter Alison (shown below with the bowls of atol and fresh corn on the table).

Maria is poor and could not have afforded the surgery she received from PazSalud.  This was her way of saying 'thank you' for all PazSalud did to help her.  Here she is with family in the portal of her home, the place where company is always received in rural Salvadoran homes.

More from the Surgical Mission

Rod Butler sent us a sampling from his photos of the 2014 surgical mission, showing the group at work:

Above top, our volunteer nurse prepares patients for surgery; middle, surgeon Bruce and scrub tech in the midst of a cataract surgery; below, surgeon Tony with a patient.

And here is the surgical team, gathered at the Santisima Trinidad retreat house where the group stayed:

Darren sends the statistics for this hard-working group of volunteers:

• 58 surgeries
• 55 patients
• 48 cataracts
• 10 pterigiums
• 1 patient, two pterigiums 
• 2 patients, cataract and pterigium

Now that's a good week's work!

Surgery in progress

Susan writes:

Our 2014 surgery mission is taking place from May 10 - 19 at the National Hospital in Cojutepeque.  I'm not there this time, so I was thrilled that our good friend and most generous volunteer, Rossy Melara, posted photos from the mission on her FaceBook page. 

That's Darren, our PazSalud Coordinator, on the left; Rossy is in the middle, with Bruce and Terry on the right.  And here's a photo from inside the surgery suite:

I should be able to post more info about the week on Monday, when Darren and Kathy will have a bit more time.  This week, I know from five years' experience, they are completely absorbed in making sure that everything is done just right and in dealing with all the unexpected events that are sure to happen.

The patients this week were recommended for cataract surgery (or in a few cases to have pterygiums, growths from the conjunctiva, removed) by the examining optometrist.  Usually we only have patients from our General Medical Mission, held in San Pedro Perulapán, about a half hour's drive from the hospital, but this year we also have a number of patients from Estanzuelas who were recommended during a Bellingham Lions Eye Screening Mission.  This year marks an important first for us: for the first time, our surgeons will be using a Phaco Emulsifier - the equipment most often used for cataract surgeries in the U.S. - for many of the surgeries. 

Stay tuned for more news from the mission!

Before surgery

Darren writes:

After two group meetings/information sessions with our eye surgery patient candidates the next step for them is to complete the extensive series of pre-surgical exams at The National Hospital of Cojutepeque, the medical center hosting PazSalud for the Eye Surgery Mission on May 12-17.  Since we are only allowed to bring 5 patients per day for pre-exams and we hope to have 65 people participate in the mission, Yessenia - our local coordinator - and I have been slowly working our way through the group for several weeks now. 



Our days begin at 7:00 at the hospital when the group of patients meets with the social worker who helps them with the first step; getting a hospital file.  For many of our patients, this is their first time at the hospital, for some a first contact with Salvadoran doctors.  Connecting Salvadorans with their own government-sponsored, free health care system is one of the beneficial by-products of PazSalud missions.  Once the patients are registered at the hospital, the next step is to have a blood test, followed by a chest x-ray, an EKG and the taking of weights and measurements.  The days usually end by 1:30 with an internist interviewing patients to evaluate their fitness for surgery and so far everyone has qualified.  With a dozen patients to go we hope the streak continues.