Today in the morning we toured the largest hospital in El Salvador, which is in the city of Santa Ana. Hospital San Juan de Dios was founded in 1846, and currently serves a region that extends even beyond national borders. We stopped by to present a box of donated medical supplies, which we coordinated through Project CURE and the Santa Ana Rotary Club. The club is one that is proud of its 80-year history and has a number of medical professionals as members. They gave us an insiders’ tour of the hospital, and we saw everything from the ophthalmology center to the maternity ward.
I think what struck all of us was the degree to which Rotary has played a part in the operations of the hospital. Everywhere we turned it seemed there was a plaque commemorating a Rotary project of some sort.
We met with the hospital director briefly to explain the donation, but it was really in speaking with the individual doctors who see patients at the hospital every day that we understood the importance of our donation. One doctor told me that sometimes they can’t even find a clean needle for what they need. And while one small box seems like a drop in the bucket compared to the enormous volume of patients that need assistance, maybe we helped a few people to avoid and infection or allow the hospital to use their limited funds to buy a new piece of equipment. We will probably never know, but either way, we know it is needed.
Amy
No comments:
Post a Comment