Healing hands in Guatemala as Mankato-based Minnesota Doctors for People returns

A young mother brings her son with a neuro-muscular disorder to see a doctor for the first time since his birth. At 15 months old, the child is missing traditional milestones like holding up his head and playing peekaboo.

Her son was born during Guatemala's strictest COVID-19 restrictions, so the mother, who resides in the poor countryside of San Lucas Tolimán on Guatemala's Lake Atitlán, had not yet had a chance to see a doctor.

This lack of medical attention has been the norm for rural Guatemalans. That's where Minnesota Doctors for People (MDP) comes in.

The Mankato-based medical volunteers (mndoctors.org) visited the San Lucas area from March 23-31, after a two-year hiatus from regular annual visits. They saw 166 patients — a fraction of their pre-pandemic benchmark.

By American standards, the makeshift clinics set up in school buildings and other residential structures might seem shoddy — stray dogs and chickens might encroach into patient waiting areas. But for residents, they are crucial touch-points for medical care. For the most part, the patients suffer from minor ailments, but those can balloon into major problems if left untreated. And other situations are more urgent. One elderly woman, weighing 59 pounds, came in with a large hernia, for which she received a referral to a specialist.

"When you're down here, you always know that there's so many more people that you could have taken care of," said MDP team leader and pediatrician Cathy Davis. "That's the hard thing ... that you leave people behind that need care."

Minnesota Doctors for People volunteered in Guatemala in cooperation with Friends of San Lucas, an Eagan-based nonprofit partner of the long-established Mission of San Lucas Tolimán.

Friends of San Lucas (FOSL) was launched in 2012 by the late Rev. Gregory Schaffer, a diocesan priest from New Ulm who had served as the pastor for San Lucas since 1963. Knowing that he was dying, he asked a group of committed friends and supporters to continue the work.

May 24 is the 10th anniversary of Schaffer's death, but his legacy lives on. Over four-plus decades, Schaffer established schools, a hospital and several locally run programs aimed at ensuring the health and autonomy of Guatemalan people, including a coffee cooperative and a women's center.

One need not look long around villages surrounding San Lucas, where Schaffer is buried, to find a plaque or building bearing his name in honor of his humanitarian efforts. He was awarded the Order of Quetzal, the country's highest honor, in 2007.

A legacy of income inequity

When Schaffer began his work, there were no paved roads in the San Lucas area. Many of the concrete houses in the city today were once straw huts and the residents lived in poverty, the legacy of an era of forced labor.

The Rev. John Goggin, also of the New Ulm Diocese, worked alongside Schaffer for decades and oversaw the parish and the fledgling social programs when Schaffer would return to the U.S. to raise money. He said that when Schaffer began his work in rural areas, the terrain was often one of the biggest challenges.

Getting to some of these communities "meant four-wheel drives. It meant going through streams," Goggin said.

In cooperation with local leaders, Schaffer led social justice efforts to alleviate poverty and its root causes — lack of education and inequities in land ownership. Local literacy rates are said to have jumped from 20 to 80% in part as a result of the mission's efforts.

While Schaffer has been gone for nearly a decade, those who knew him best say his presence is still felt.

"All these programs that the mission and the Friends of San Lucas are continuing are his legacy and his presence," Goggin said. "And the people are very grateful to Father Greg and those who have picked up and expanded some of these programs."

Schaffer provided rudimentary medical care to the sisters at the School Sisters of Notre Dame — which provides education to Guatemalans — and legend has it he'd give aspirin for pain above the neck and vitamins for anything below the neck, said Goggin. The lines of people waiting for Schaffer's medical attention "got pretty short," he quipped.

Understanding the need for qualified medical providers, Schaffer expanded the medical program of which MDP is now a part. They join other health care efforts around San Lucas that aim to empower residents to seek medical attention and understand their own health.

In addition to providing affordable health care at the hospital associated with the mission — patients can be seen for a mostly ceremonial 10 quetzales, or about $1.50, and can have surgery for 200 quetzales, or about $26 — the mission and FOSL employ health promoters, who understand local customs and attitudes, to encourage more people to seek medical attention.

"Part of our philosophy was responding to the expressed felt needs of the people," Goggin said.

The most typical medical problems MDP providers saw during their March visit were related to diabetes and work injuries like joint cysts or back pain. Many who came to the clinics did so simply to get vitamins for their children or ibuprofen for aches. But no matter the reason for the visits, Davis said she was happy to provide service.

Patients are "very thankful, and their graciousness just fills me up," Davis said. "It was nice to see a patient where the mother just needed reassurance that her daughter was fine."

While MDP's return to San Lucas might be a good sign for residents seeking medical treatment, some patients may need to hold out just a bit longer. Minnesota Doctors for People had planned their trip to Guatemala about two years ago, so their providers were eager to go. But other doctors, who have been grappling with the hardships of the pandemic, have not been as willing to use their precious time off to volunteer abroad.

Patrick Twomey, FOSL's medical volunteer coordinator, said there were no medical volunteer groups lined up for April. But Davis remains optimistic that as COVID continues to become more manageable, doctors will volunteer.

"When things settle down and there's not as many sick people — and I think we're heading in that direction — it will be easier to find providers who are willing to take their vacation time to see patients," she said.

Casey Ek is a freelance multimedia journalist based in St. Paul. He is the editor of the nonprofit Community Reporter.