Casa Guatemala Newsletters

Newsletter 2008 Cleft Palate Surgery in Guatemala

To some children born in poverty, in villages far away from civilization, there is no medical or social care provided by the government.  For the children who are also born with this terrible birth defect, the situation is immeasurably worse.

These children not only suffer from difficulties with speech, breathing, ear, gum and teeth defects, but also with rejection and shame that is heaped on them by their societies.  Families often keep these children hidden away from the curious eyes of people who would be cruel to them.  The situation would be the same in all corners of the world, but in more developed places the cure is readily available, and at a relatively low cost considering what is at stake.  Children here who do not get this condition corrected have very little to look forward to in life.  They are kept hidden away, they will receive no education and not even get to socialise with other kids of the same age.  They will be shunned for their whole lives.

We travel far into rural areas - to places that you would have to walk for hours to reach from the nearest real road.  We look for children with this condition, and when we find them we explain to the family of the child, or the person suffering that we can help.  Most of these people do not believe it when we tell them we are able to help - they do not think that this condition is something that can be fixed without a trace of the former disfiguration.  They also do not believe that we are willing to help with asking for anything in return. 

The Mayan belief is that this condition occurs because during a lunar eclipse, the pregnant mother did not show herself to the moon.  Therefore, the spirit of the moon takes a part of her child as a punishment.  Long held beliefs such as are very difficult to replace with knowledge of what modern medicine can do.

So we have to spend a lot of time and convince the local shaman, the priest or the pastor, the village elder and the parents of the child.  We have to convince them that our intention is not to steal the child, and so we agree with them that two adults will accompany the child along to the hospital in the city.  Usually the mother and the father come along.  We then realise that many of these people have never seen a car before, let alone ridden in one.  They expect to walk or to ride a mule.  We then have to explain that we cannot take them to a hospital 600km away on the back of a mule.

It is not an easy task, but with enough persistence we are eventually able to get the child to the hospital and perform the surgery.  We provide the parents with food and a place to sleep for the two days that the child is in the hospital, and cover all of the costs of transport to the hospital and back.  We also have to make a return visit to the child to remove the stitches, once the skin has healed.

The average cost for all of this in Guatemala is $300.  This is the contribution that we need to transform the lives of these children.

We have been performing these surgeries for the last 26 years, and every year we search deeper into the jungle and rural areas where transport is more difficult and the people are more afraid to trust outsiders.  Often we need to take a translator for the Qéqchi language that is most common for the Mayan people that we visit, otherwise the task of convincing the villagers would be impossible. 

This year we have 15 cases lined up so far, and we expect another 15 by the time the medical team arrives.  The surgeries will take place on the 2nd March 2008.  We will soon have pictures of some of the young children who are going to undergo the surgery.

This surgery is made possible by a team of doctors from Chicago in the United States.  Dr. Alvaro Fiugeroa leads a team of 14 people from the Rush Craniofacial Center, that consists of suregons, anaethetists, paedeotricians, nurses.  They provide the entire service, and contribuye ahead of time so that we can parchase the medical supplies ahead of time. We provided the patients.

Please make a donation to help us to help these young children.  You can donate online or find out the address to send a cheque to at: http://www.casa-guatemala.org/donate.php. Doctor Figueroa can be contacted via: alvaro_figueroa@rush.edu.

Thank you.

Angie,

Casa Guatemala.