Medical Clinic in Busay

Delfin and the house he built for his daughter


The children and I (and Elder Vander Veen)


Elder Knaphus assembles toy airplanes

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

What a wonderful, but very busy day. I spent the morning up in the hills in a little community at a medical clinic. Former missionaries have organized a foundation and they come back once a year and put on medical clinics and give away free medicine. They also are remodeling a little hospital. Most of their projects this year have been on other islands, but this one was very near us so the office elders and I went to help. AND as a bonus I walked by two orchid farms on the path down to the village. It was great.

They had organized and planned very well – contacted barangay leaders who provided nurses and helped them contact doctors. The Barangay set up a canopy on a basketball court in the center of the little village. They also furnished about four tables and a dozen chairs. The foundation provided cases of most commonly-needed medications which, based on the doctors’ exams and prescriptions, were provided to the patients free of charge. When we arrived, many people, mostly women and children, but some men as well, were all waiting. Barangay nurses were there and began taking information and preparing for the doctors. When the doctors arrived – they were three government doctors who provide these free clinics a couple of mornings a week. They had actually been doing another clinic in Cebu and were so discouraged. Many people needed medication and had no money to buy it, so what was the point of checking them and writing prescriptions. They left that clinic early and came up the mountain. When they saw the big boxes of meds the foundation had provided, they talked to the man in charge of the foundation – Gary, and he came up with the idea of sending two of the foundation men down to the site of the first clinic and hiring a jeepney to bring the people there up to the mountain where the medicine was! They did; many of the people came; all were grateful to have the medicines they needed.

Our job was to entertain the children (and guard the cases of medicines) while people patiently waited for their turn to see one of the doctors. I took a few pictures. Delfin – the gardener/cleaner at the stake center who has helped me often – lives in that area. I took a picture of him beside the house he built for his daughter, and another of him with his grandson. He was one of the men helping organize and keep things in order. I saw a man badly crippled and ask Delfin about him. He had a stroke a couple of years ago. I talked to Delfin about the Church wheel chair program and he took some request forms and agreed to follow up on them.