Loving through medical means

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

DISPLAYING an act of love—perhaps far nobler than just handing over chocolates or roses this month—this particular group are out on a mission to change the lives of their Filipino brethren who are in need, for the better.

“It’s the first time we’re not doing this on Valentine’s Day itself,” explained Dr. Zenda Garcia-Lat, the national president of The UP Medical Alumni Society in America (Upmasa). She says they moved the event a week earlier this year, because according to her personal observations, the Philippines takes Valentine’s Day quite more seriously than the west.

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Nevertheless Upmasa, an association comprising US-based doctors trained at the University of the Philippines (UP), are in town from Feb. 6 to 9 for a medical mission to provide medical consultations and the like for those who wish to avail themselves of health care.

“They come from all over the USA and come at their own expense. They are composed of doctors, nurses, spouses and friends,” confirmed Dr. Valentin Dolorico, the association’s medical missions committee chairman.

This year’s selected sites for the medical mission are the towns of Liloan (Feb. 6), Minglanilla (Feb. 7). Today operations will continue in Balamban and tomorrow, they will be wrapping up their visit with Dumanjug as their last official stop.

“We generally go on these missions at the invitation of the local doctors and government officials because we make sure we serve only indigent patients. Many times these patients have never seen doctors before,” explained Dr. Zenda.

Besides the patients being provided with health education, medical and dental consultation and free medicine, other services include “general, plastic (cleft lips), gynecology and ophthalmology surgery” to be administered by a surgical team composed of surgeons, anesthesiologists and nurses. Surgery consists of both major and minor cases (lumps and bumps).

Upmasa has been doing this annual medical mission since 1994, catering to a lot of small towns and places like Baroy, Lanao del Norte, Hilongos, Leyte, Gingoog, Misamis, Siaton, Negros, Bani, Pangasinan, Pototan, Iloilo, and Gataran, Ilocos Norte, to name a few.

Given the challenge of remote locations, the members of the team by experience, have had to work through different obstacles. One such would be power failures—even to the point of improvising with the use of flashlights. One interesting story was when in Lanao del Norte, Dr. Zenda herself had to undergo an emergency appendectomy, under the medical mission circumstances, becoming a mission patient herself. If she had waited until the medical missions were done, her appendix would likely have ruptured.

The Upmasa medical mission is a yearly project run in partnership with Ugnayan Ng Pahinungod, the volunteer arm of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine and its teaching hospital, the Philippine General Hospital. Sun.Star Publishing, which publishes Sun.Star Cebu, is one of the partners for this year’s medical mission. Sun.Star Cebu is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

Other partners for the medical mission this year include the Catholic Medical Mission Board, Bausch & Lomb, Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, district congressmen, local health providers, mayors of the respective towns selected, Unilab Philippines and Mercury Drugs Philippines.

“This is our way of giving back to our country. … Even for one or two lives saved in a course of a mission, it’s all worth it,” Dr. Zenda shared. “You can never replace the joy you feel.”