Tuesday, April 21, 2009 – Day 2 Clinic

This morning the team made the two-hour journey to San Juan Buena Vista. One of the first patients we saw was an 83 year-old woman who had lived there her entire life; she remarked that this was the first time doctors had ever come to the community. She was very grateful.

San Juan Buena Vista is an interesting case. The village is fortunate enough to be relatively close to a new medical clinic, recently built through donated funds. Unfortunately, there was not enough money to staff the clinic, and so it is not operational.




An invaluable component of FTC Canada’s projects is the dental clinic. An average family of 10 in rural El Salvador collectively earns about $80 USD per month. A visit to the dentist for one person for a simple cleaning costs around $40. Understandably, many of the patients we saw today had never been to a dentist.

With so little access to dental care, extractions are a large part of what our team does. Dr. Mark commented that he performed around 40 extractions today, as compared to his practice in Canada, where he performs perhaps one extraction per week. Some patients had to have as many as 8 teeth pulled in one sitting.



But what is so impressive about what FTC Canada’s dental teams are able to accomplish on these projects is not how many teeth they remove, but how many they are able to restore! One 19 year-old man visited us very upset. He had broken off the lower third of one of his teeth, and naturally assumed it would have to be pulled. He was very anxious about losing a tooth. Dr. Jack was able to not only save the tooth, but also to cosmetically alter it to look as though it had never been broken, allowing the young man to keep his beautiful smile. He was simply ecstatic.





Our dental team arrives at every site an hour before the rest of the group, in order to set up the large amount of equipment necessary to provide such care. Even with extra time taken to accomodate such extensive build-up and tear-down of equipment, there is often more demand than our dental team can meet. Patients are often reluctantly turned away as it begins to get dark, and it becomes unsafe for us to continue. Today, our dental team was able to see every single patient.

Our medical team were also able to see every single patient. Some particularly interesting cases included Rosa, a four year-old girl with such a bad heart murmur, she is only the size of a two year-old. FTC Canada was pleased to be able to arrange for her to travel to San Salvador to receive an echocardiogram, which will determine what further treatment she requires.

We also saw Rosalina, an 11 year-old girl who has had a large piece of pencil lead lodged in her forehead for 3 years. It is innocuous, but she loves soccer, and the lead makes it hurts to hit the ball with her head. Dr. Elizabeth once again scrubbed up and removed the lead, helping Rosalina to continue her soccer career pain-free.

Perhaps the case that most affected the team today though was that of Marcos and Roberto. Marcos is an 87 year-old woman who walked several hours to come to the clinic today. She hoped a doctor would be able to come to her home to see her son, Roberto, who has cerebral palsy and was unable to make such a journey. Dr. Paul happily obliged with a house call.





Roberto is not Marcos birth son. When he was only two days old, his birth mother, seeing his disability, did not want him. With no family of her own, Marcos happily took him in. Roberto is now 43 years old and although she is so poor and can often only afford to feed him tortillas and salt, it is a testament to Marcos’ loving care that Roberto has thrived. Dr. Paul treated both Marcos and Roberto for parasites, fevers and colds.