First Two Days at the Clinics and Hospital

Written by: Payton Statkewicz - 2nd year medical student

Above and below are pictures of some of the nicer homes my husband and I saw on our way to bring a basket of food to a family in need. These are homes we walked to from our clinic and this is where many of the patients we saw lived.

When we made it to the home we were walking to I was speechless. The father of the family we were going to visit has cancer and we were told is very sick, yet he was still out working trying to provide for his family. His daughter was home and was able to let us in to their one room home that was maybe 8ft by 8ft and housed their whole family. We were able to pray with the daughter for her father and family and left them their basket of food. Russell and I left their home with so much more than what we came with. The image of their home is burned into my brain permanently and a sense of immediate thankfulness came over both of us when we thought of what we call home. I know the food will be a temporary blessing for that family, but the blessing they gave to us will last a lifetime. Please keep this family in your prayers.

Above is a picture of the clinic we worked at the first two days. It is the building on the left and is actually this community's church. The pastor of the church is a precious christian, who truly is changing and blessing so many lives in this community. Many people from this church along with the pastor graciously helped us set up our clinic and helped us throughout our time there. We saw close to 400 people from this community in these two days. It was really awesome that as we were helping these people, they were also helping us learn and perfect some of our clinical skills. The Honduran doctors that worked with us were so patient teaching us and so kind to give up their time to help the community in need.

This is the public and main hospital in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. I was able to visit this hospital for an afternoon  on our second day of our clinic and watch two orthopedic surgeries. This gave me a whole new perspective on the waiting time in ER rooms in the United States. One patient that received surgery on Monday had been waiting 18 months for it. We will be setting a clinic up tomorrow in a new location, please keep our group and our patients in your prayers.