Nogales, Arizona
Powering the Clinic are Three Essentials
1.
Volunteers-from
surgeons to food servers; many come for an hour and stay connected for
years.
2.
Donations-of
money, medicine, and essential goods from churches, businesses, civic
groups, charitable trusts, and individuals.
3.
Love-from
parents facing great obstacles in their quest for help.
The children, from ages 1 month to 18 years, have a myriad of medical
problems, from spina bifida to cerebral palsy, from Down's syndrome to
speech and hearing problems, and more. X-rays, laboratory tests,
prescriptions, orthopedic devices, and hearing aids are just some of the
aids these children need right now, or over time.
Thursday Miracles
St.
Andrew's Church bustles on Clinic days. That's when it is
quickly
transformed into a medical clinic. What may look like disorder to a
visitor is a tried and true procedure. Everyone has an important job to
do and knows how to do it well.
Because no one ever receives a bill, there is not a computer in sight.
And medicine is practiced the old-fashioned way, with scrupulous patient
records in plain manila folders, and doctors, nurses, and students
solving problems directly in stand-up conferences.
As
the morning gears up, women from the community hurry to serve snacks to
families who have traveled for hours or all night by bus. Others prepare
lunch. Some volunteers gather and set out medical record files, ready
for each specialist. Interpreters stand by. A craft table is set up to
occupy the children while they wait. Volunteers sort and bag donated
clothes and food from Borderland Food Bank to be given to families at
day's end. Outside, a local Rotary club donates
a candy-apple red wheelchair to the Clinic.
Vans, driven by volunteers, arrive from the Border-la línea-with
their
important cargo. The Parish Hall is now a waiting room where children
greet one another and the volunteers (and Santa Claus in December). Soon
the medical professionals, many from the University of Arizona College
of Medicine, check in and begin to see their patients.
Each medical specialty occupies its own corner of the Church
building:orthopedics in the gaily painted day care center; pediatrics in
the stained glass-lit hallway; orthotics in the choir room; audiology in
the sacristy, a baptismal font adjacent; physical therapy in the front
hall.In one room, a speech pathologist works with children with cleft
palate and hearing disorders. Nearby, another speech pathologist works
with children with cerebral palsy.
There
is a certain hum and buzz as children with major health problems and
their loving parents gather with the medical staff. Interpreters are
called from one group to another. A dad stands by holding a Teddy bear
while his son is examined. The atmosphere is charged with possibilities.
Within a few hours, each child will see a specialist, perhaps more. Some
patients willreceive medications; others will be
fitted
for a brace or artificial limb; some will be scheduled for follow-up
tests in Tucson or surgeries to be done in Tucson or at Shriners
hospitals in Sacramento, CA and Spokane, WA.
As Thursday comes to a close, vans begin to transport families back to
la línea and their long journeys home.
Miracle Numbers
The
estimated dollar value of time donated each year to St. Andrew's
Children's Clinic is approximately $1.5 million.
On board most Clinic days are 2 orthopedic surgeons and several
orthopedic residents and students, 5 pediatricians, 2 neurologists, 1
pediatric cardiologist, 6-8 medical students, 1 ophthalmology therapist,
1 equipment technician to fit wheel chairs, walkers, crutches, and other
aids. Nearly 100 lay volunteers make the day run smoothly.
Each year approximately 36 children receive free orthopedic surgeries,
15 have cleft palate surgery and 3 undergo miscellaneous other surgeries
at Shriners as well as University (of Arizona) Medical Center, Tucson
Medical Center, St. Joseph's Hospital of Carondelet Health Network, and
selected hospitals in Mexico.
Beautiful Pay-Offs
A
former patient, now a
young law student at the University of Hermosillo,
Mexico, recently visited. In 1979, she arrived with a deformed neck and
back; surgery and braces corrected the problem, and determination and
faith did the rest.
Young Luis Enrique de la Cruz came to the Clinic with neuromotor
disabilities and severe weakness of speech muscles. He now owns a
computer business and works for his local government in Sonora.
Rosa, age 15, volunteers at the Clinic. Once unable to hear or speak, a
quality hearing aid and speech lessons enable her to thrive.
Clinic roots as a teaching center continue with the University of
Arizona College of Medicine, which sends students to work directly with
the families. The Clinic also fosters a connection with health
professionals in Mexico, teaching them to care for their own.
Dedicated volunteers appear and new sources of funding are discovered
regularly.
The Future - What Lies Ahead ...
What lies ahead for the Clinic? Like everything around it, it cannot
escape the winds of change that are altering the economic and political
landscape that surrounds it. While it must hold fast to its tradition of
personal volunteerism at the heart of its service, there are certain
areas that must evolve if it is to stay true to its mission of providing
free medical care to the poor, disabled and disadvantaged children of
Mexico. Areas to explore in the years ahead include:
1. Building a stronger financial base of support through regular and
renewable contributions to the Clinic's operating and program costs.
While individual donations (now close to 50% of the budget) will always
be an important way to support and participate in the work of the
Clinic, larger contributions, especially from private sector sources in
Mexico and the U.S., are needed and will be aggressively pursued.
2. Supporting the volunteer medical professionals who are the core of
the Clinic's services through such initiatives as obtaining malpractice
insurance and establishing the Clinic as an official training site with
regional medical education programs at the University of Arizona, the
Shriners hospitals and elsewhere.
3. While continuing the wonderful collaboration with the St. Andrew’s
Episcopal Church in Nogales that has benefited so many children over the
years, commit to exploring the creation of a Clinic facility better
suited to professional medical care. The prospect of having donated
property for such a new facility adjacent to the church will ensure that
this unique partnership with the Church will be as important a part of
the Clinic’s future as it has been of its past and present. The
possibility of our own building has taken a giant step towards
realization with the commitment of the Chamberlain family to set up a
building fund with an initial $100,000 contribution. We ask others to
assist with contributions to this fund.
4. Creating a volunteer coordinator position to make better use of the
amazing resources of time, talent and life experience that exist in such
communities as Green Valley, Tubac and Nogales. And, along with that
effort on the U.S. side, must come an equally vigorous effort to recruit
and involve volunteers in Mexico, especially from the communities that
send numbers of their children to the Clinic. There already exists a
strong volunteer effort in these areas. Now is the time to reinforce and
expand it.
5. Transferring more of the Clinic's operations to Mexico. The recent
cleft palate operations at the CIMA hospital in Hermosillo are a
dramatic example of how cost and travel time can be dramatically reduced
in some instances by bringing the program to the children rather than
having them come to the Clinic.
6. Providing medical, home and school care skills and expertise to
health professionals, educators and parents in Sonora to enable them to
better treat their own children at home and in their communities.
Sharing training programs and resources on both sides of the border can
increase the numbers of children receiving assistance while improving
the quality of care to the whole community.
The Clinic of Love
The Clinic of Love . . .
La Clinica de los Niños . . .
These are affectionate names for St. Andrew's Children's Clinic in
Nogales, AZ, celebrating its 34th year of giving free medical care to
children from poor Mexican families.
One
autumn day in 1973 in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, some concerned parents of
children with cerebral palsy began a small home school. The public
school system had no place for their children. The therapist who came to
teach them recruited a doctor to attend to medical needs.
Today, the caring parents' original idea flourishes. Housed in an
Episcopal church just north of the Mexican border, St. Andrew's
Children's Clinic welcomes almost 250 children and their families the
first Thursday of each month, except hot July.