Institute for Ethical and Civic Engagement

Healing hands: Boulder group runs medical clinic in Nicaragua

Group helps those who are poor to visit doctor

By Brittany Anas

Young American medics -- volunteering a world away while on their spring breaks -- set up a health clinic in a rural Nicaraguan town.

For a 6-year-old girl, losing her health to pneumonia, their arrival was just in time.

Her parents were ready to walk with her 15 miles to the nearest hospital. Instead, medics at the free clinic were able to evaluate her and drive her to the hospital that day, said David Baulesh, a graduate of the University of Colorado who runs a Boulder-based nonprofit to improve health in Latin American countries.

Thirty young adults, who are CU students or alum, traveled to Chacraseca last month with the "Health Outreach for Latin America Foundation," or HOLA.

The team offered free public health classes for locals throughout the week, teaching basics to those who live in a town where garbage is burned because there is no public trash system. They ran a medical clinic, offering vitamins, vaccinations and treating infections for people who are too poor to pay for medical help, or live too far away from a doctor. The medics also hired a local veterinarian and neutered and vaccinated dogs, as many as 6,000 in one day, as the animals are overpopulated and malnourished.

Before their departure, the volunteers met with community leaders who told them: "You guys really make a difference every time you come here, even if it's just for a week, especially for those who are really poor and can't afford to go to the doctor."

But the intent of the nonprofit is to make a year-round impact by setting up programs that can run on their own when the young medics return to Boulder. Now, they leave behind medical supplies, teach locals how to clean their water and wash their dishes and vaccinate the livestock so that there are healthy food sources.

Baulesh said the goal is to make an even larger impact by keeping the health clinic running year-round.

"I just want to help people"

Part of the program's success will be in understanding the culture and beliefs, which can sometimes be distrusting of doctors and medicine. The group raises money throughout the year to hire local physicians because they best understand the culture of their region as well as the prevalent health problems.

Volunteers, who were working with the program's travelling medic clinic, arrived at the home of a Nicaraguan woman, who was suffering from a punctured lung.

They were eager to rush her to the hospital, where they could set up a life-saving surgery for the woman, who was in excruciating pain. But her brother intervened and refused treatment on her behalf because of his families' superstitions, recalled Valary Raup, a CU sophomore who worked at the medical clinic in the rural town of 8,000 last month.

"Nothing we could say could change his mind," Raup said.

Raup, who is on a pre-medicine path, wants to be a doctor devoting her talent to developing countries.

She said part of her work is understanding the different cultures with which she works: how some in the villages have never had a doctor's visit; why it's so difficult for many to make it to a doctor; and where medicine and spiritual beliefs intersect.

Her passion for a universal right to access hospitals and doctors comes through when she speaks with youthful optimism on how to remedy the global injustices she has witnessed.

She said many of the health clinic's clients had urinary tract infections, which can be treated easily with repositories. But the infections often go untreated, becoming so serious they threaten lives. One man came in to the clinic with X-ray slides showing he had a brain aneurysm, but he couldn't get a doctor to perform the surgery. The medic group paid $10 for a teenage boy with a liver disease to be diagnosed and treated before he became sicker.

"I just want to help people," Raup said. "I want to share my medical knowledge and advance public health."

Katie McCune, a CU student studying sociology, helped lead public health classes that became popular among the locals. In a safe drinking water exercise, McCune said, the group taught the locals that germs can't be seen. A common misconception among the locals was that mosquitoes were germs, and water was safe if the insects were not in it.

Visitors to the health clinic took the courses while they waited for medical attention, vitamins or check-ups.

"One of the things I really enjoy in life is helping other people," McCune said. "So, I get something out of it, too."

Members this year raised about $15,500 in donations to run the program, which helped pay for medical supplies and to hire native doctors and a veterinarian.

CU pushes civic engagement

The medical relief trip, which is in its sixth year, started with a sponsorship from Alpha Epsilon Delta, CU's pre-med honors society. But last year, alumni started Health Outreach for Latin America. Some of the students are certified Emergency Medical Technicians.

Dozens of CU students this spring break opted for alternative trips, spending their time away from school volunteering across the country and abroad.

The university's long-term push is to get its entire student body -- 30,000-some students -- civically engaged in one way or another. Now, 13,000 students on CU's Boulder campus volunteer in some capacity, whether by working at a local food bank or joining the Peace Corps, according to Peter Simons, director of CU's Institute for Ethical and Civic Engagement.

Last year, the university was among three schools nationwide to earn a presidential award for community service.

Meg Richard, who will be graduating in May with Spanish and integrative physiology degrees, said the trip to Central America fits into her long-term career goals. Richard, who has also traveled to the Dominican Republic to work in an AIDS clinic, is applying for medical schools. She said she wants to work with under-served populations, either abroad or in the United States.

She helped lead the public health forums at the Nicaraguan clinic. One evening, as she was working on a lesson plan, the clinic received a call from a frantic woman whose 14-year-old daughter was suffering from severe chest pain. The Boulder group hopped in a truck, travelling down windy rural roads.

Richard, who is fluent in Spanish, was able to relay to the family what was happening during the examination, and that their daughter had a minor infection that could be treated.

"I could tell there was this look of panic on their faces," she said. "It was a minor infection, but there, small things turn into big things, which turn into life-threatening situations. I was able to make them feel like their child is going to be OK, and take some of that fear away."

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