GLMS FOUNDATION NICARAGUA MISSION
WE HAD TO GO : HAND IN HAND / GLMS FOUNDATION NICARAGUA MISSION 2020 AUTHOR Goetz Kloecker , MD
The group of Greater Louisville Medical Society Foundation medical professionals who visited Managua in January this year was a bit smaller than before . Ten of us decided that helping the poorest in the utterly poor nation of Nicaragua , despite its 2019 civil uprising and its bloody reprisals , was worth it . We signed papers accepting the risk and added emergency insurance to get into a country that was listed by the State Department as high risk due to “ civil unrest , crime , limited health care availability , and arbitrary enforcement of laws .”
We have reported in the past about Hand in Hand ’ s yearly medical missions to this second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere , and how Hand in Hand throughout many years has supported the education of the children in slums of Managua . Many of us have explained how transformative this experience has been for us , who knew only the abundance of medical services in first world countries .
This medical immersion was needed more than ever , since the conflict made the country even poorer by losing its income from tourism . Its people felt more abandoned and forgotten by the world .
Many workers in the country earn a mere $ 5 / day .
When we arrived in Managua , Hand in Hand ’ s pastor , Ed Dunsworth and his wife Barb , picked us up at the airport with big smiles and hugs , taking us to their home , where we would stay for a week . Little did we know that two months later , air travel would be a fantasy for most of us , and “ to hug or not to hug ” and “ inviting into your home ” would both be wrenchingly difficult .
We have described the difficulties that doctors in Nicaragua face in this country of 6 million due to lack of resources of all sorts : medication , equipment , computers , hospital space . We have seen how ventilators and ICU care , infusions , even morphine have been rationed . We have looked out at the patients waiting in long lines with admirable patience , only to leave the brief doctor visits often empty-handed .
Little did we know that in the US and many countries around the world , medical centers would plead urgently for equipment , masks , medications and staff . We would all worry how much worse the situation could get , and who would remain standing to help . These are fears that Nicaraguans have endured for decades . Their needs were great enough to cause revolt against Somoza ’ s decade-long dictatorship in the 70s , and led to the unrest and rebellion in 2019 against Ortega ’ s government .
NOVEMBER 2020 21