Observing Consultations at a Rural Clinic – “Salud Y Paz”

Today, Tuesday, I got the chance to observe at a rural clinic outside the village of Camanchaj. At this point, I have gotten the chance to watch medical consults at a number of different clinics, and at each clinic I have learned so much about medicine and also noticed some interesting differences in the clinics. As I have mentioned before, the Guatemalan health system is technically public and free for citizens, but because of the lack of resources, the system, especially based in the large regional hospitals, is hardly sufficient. For this reason, these private, social clinics (Like Salud y Paz in Camanchaj and the ICA clinic I shadow in regularly) are a great resource for people with little money

Salud y Paz is very different from the ICA clinic however. It was started by a Texas Methodist pastor and now run by a committee of the national Methodist church of Guatemala. Salud y Paz charges for consults and medicines, but at a very discounted price while consults at ICA are totally free.

Salud y Paz also has a lot of resources that the ICA clinic (started by a Spanish school in the city of Quetzaltenango) does not. Luckily, they have a laboratory, surgical rooms (they don’t do surgeries regularly, but rather only every few months when teams of surgeons, usually foreign, visit for about a week. Last week a lot of my friends got the chance to observe hysterectomies, cyst removals and other related surgeries done by a team of Canadian surgeons), and a dental office. I found that the consults could be very thorough for patients with diabetes and other stomach/lung infections because of the lab/pharmacy resources they had right inside the same building. Patients could get their blood sugar checked the same day they had their appointment with their doctor.

The clinic definitely has its limits though, and many patients are forced to go to the regional hospital for surgeries, biopsies, and other serious organ complications. You can tell easily how hesitant most people are to go to the busy, disorganized hospitals. I can understand their hesitance because my friend Sharon told me that when she visited the regional hospital with her Guatemalan Mom who had a serious lung infection that the medical residents there barely spent time with patients and hastily wrote their medical notes on scraps of paper which they often lost moments after.

However, Salud y Paz really impressed me with the care they gave. I observed the medical consults of Dr. Freddy, who spent a good amount of time explaining to his patients the importance of diet and mental health to as many patients as possible. In a country where preventative medicine is rare and difficult to access, the work of Dr. Freddy is very special.