Peña Blanca, Honduras …. [Patricia Thio/ANN Staff]
Tucked in the tropical mountains of Honduras sits a haven for hungry, sick, and abandoned children known as “Pan American Health Services, Inc.,” or PAHS, an orphanage and nutritional rehabilitation hospital.
Here, children play with each other on the green grass, climb the fruit trees, eat healthy food, and attend a Seventh-day Adventist Church school.
Students for International Mission Service (SIMS), an LLU mission program, embarked on an expedition to Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. During their spring break, the team provided dental, medical, and public health care to the children at PAHS, located in Peña Blanca, Honduras, and the surrounding community.
Stephen Youngberg, MD, and his wife, Verlene, RN, both LLU graduates who devoted their lives to helping the underprivileged, founded PAHS in 1960. After realizing the number of malnourished children in the region, they opened the children’s nutritional hospital in 1965. Since then, parents have dropped off their children at the hospital for a few months until they are healthy.
Some parents never return to pick up their children. Girls’ and boys’
dorms now exist so the abandoned children can call PAHS their home.
The SIMS team conducted three health clinics. A rusty, old bus was transformed into a dental clinic where the team helped hundreds of patients.
“It was really cool,” says Heidi Apuy, third-year dental student. “We did a lot of extractions like normal trips, but we did a lot of restorative [work], too, [such as] anterior composites, root canals, and just more complex operations because we had the equipment for it.”
“My most favorite thing about the week,” explains Blanca, 9, a child living at PAHS, “was that the dentists cleaned my teeth!”
Throughout the week, the team saw about 275 people who received medical care in a clinic held in a run-down building next to the “dental bus.”
“I got an opportunity to see a lot of disorders that I don’t typically see,” says Karen Kelly, RN, public health student. “It has enriched my experience as a nurse.”
“Most of the patients that come in tend to be mothers with their young kids,” says Michael McLean, MD, medical preceptor for SIMS. “I’ve seen many different pediatric illnesses, but nothing too serious.”
The public health team held presentations for the children and workers at PAHS in the on-campus church. They educated them on hygiene, nutrition, sex education, and other health-related topics. In addition, they passed out “hygiene bags” filled with toothpaste, a toothbrush, soap, deodorant and other items. Thanks to donations, SIMS was able to provide about 50 of these bags at the meeting.
“Because this is an orphanage the kids don’t necessarily have things that belong only to them,” explains Maxine Newell, MPT, public health doctoral student. “So we put packages together so that each child has something of their own.”
“I really appreciated the health lectures,” says Carolina, 10, a child living at PAHS. “Thank you for your care and love, and for the health talks we had in the church.”
The team held a mobile clinic in a small town, Santa Cruz, a couple hours away from PAHS. The kindergarten house was converted into a dental and medical clinic as a some 200 Hondurans received health care.
For the past four years, SIMS has provided something in addition to health care. “I think the most important aspect about coming here is spending one-on-one time with the children,” states Martine Polycarpe, MPH, director of SIMS. “They’re kids, they want their moms, they want their dads, and they just want to be hugged, held and loved.”
When not in clinic, the SIMS team played with the kids from the moment they woke up to the moment it was bedtime. Soccer, volleyball, football, basketball, Frisbee, board games, coloring–whatever game it was, the lawn in front of the guest house where SIMS stayed was covered with smiling, laughing children and LLU students.
“It’s good times,” says Anthony Berdan, a first-year dental student.
“The kids around here are pretty fun to play with. At night we break out UNO, and play UNO till all hours of the night while they sit around and make fun of me in Spanish and I sit there and take it. It’s good times.”
The younger children in the nutritional hospital are trying to overcome marasmus, a serious protein-energy malnutrition, overall malnourishment; or kwashiorkor, another type of protein deficiency.
SIMS held child assessments on the kids to make sure they are developing normally and improving in their stages of nutrition.
“When a child first comes to the hospital, they’re very lethargic and have no energy,” says Polycarpe. “But it’s nice to see that after a couple weeks when the child has food and attention, they start to get out of that stage. They begin to smile, then talk, and then play like all the other kids.”
“The kids here are so amazing,” says Holly Wallstrom, third-year dental student. “They have so much to give; so much love. But there’s just not enough workers here for them to get the attention they need.”
For more information, visit www.llu.edu/llu/sims, or http://www.panamhealth.org/index.htm.
Copyright © 2004 by Adventist News Network.
