Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2008 / Volunteers head to Dominican Republic for medical mission
Volunteers head to Dominican Republic for medical mission
by Kristin Lukowski of The Michigan Catholic
Published October 3, 2008
Beverly Hills — When Freddy and Josie Sosa and their team of medical volunteers set up shop at the Hospital Pablo A. Paulino in Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic, it will be a whirlwind week of seeing an average of 200 adult and child patients per day and performing several dozen operations.
The group of about 20 people — doctors of different specialties, nurses and general volunteers — try to visit the city on the northeast shore of the island once a year to serve the poor and disadvantaged people there who cannot afford medical care. They’re a southeastern Michigan chapter of Midwest Medical Mission, which started out in Ohio going to Haiti and eventually formed their own chapter with focus on the Dominican Republic. The Sosas are members of Holy Name Parish, Birmingham.
Their group was to leave Saturday with duffel bags of supplies and medications to distribute to the people seeking medical assistance. “The poor people don’t have anything,” said Josie Sosa. “These are the ones that we help.”
Although the hospital is run by the government, the group does the best they can with the supplies they have. Funds for supplies and medications are raised by the volunteers, often through events at Holy Name, and during the week the volunteers are at the hospital they’re able to give the regular staff a break.
That area of the Dominican Republic is developing quickly for tourists, but life for the poor hasn’t improved, Sosa said; in fact, the wealthy tend to fly to Santo Domingo for treatment. Sosa said her dream is to set up a schedule for doctors to be at the hospital year-round, offering healthcare whenever it is needed.
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Photo courtesy of Josie Sosa
Nurse Joanne Seifert attends to a young Dominican child. Volunteers do everything from distribute medicine to perform minor surgery for people of the city of Las Terrenas. |
On the weeks where the volunteers are in town, doctors start seeing patients at about 8 a.m., and many of them have already been waiting in line for hours. The hospital helps by selecting cases for them to attend to, and even pre-packaging surgical items for the basic surgeries the volunteers perform, such as for hernias and gallbladders.
Among the medicine they distribute are blood-pressure medications, often needed due to the villagers’ high-pork diets, arthritis medication from working long hours doing physical labor, and anti-parasite medications. They also distribute toys to the children and clothing. Their group has been making the trip since the 1980s, and Freddy Sosa, a gastroenterologist, often brings medical students with them. Children of volunteers have come, too.
“It opens them to another world,” Josie Sosa said. “They see the world in a different light. They feel they really make a difference.”
The Hospital Pablo A. Paulino is a familiar name for Sosa — it’s named after her father, a pharmacist who rode his horse to bring medicine to patients and was never bothered by people knocking on his door at midnight to buy an aspirin. Her family grew up in the city of Sanchez, not far from Las Terrenas.
“He lived for the poor,” she said. “Many of the doctors (who visit) feel the same way.” Her father, who died 30 years ago, sent his daughter to a Catholic school run by the Dominican nuns, and she says she is grateful she grew up in a faith-filled environment and now gets the chance to continue to practice her faith. She met her husband in the Dominican Republic, and they married and moved to Michigan via Canada, having lived in Lathrup Village for 47 years.
Josie Sosa visits the Dominican Republic a few times a year as necessary, if something needs to be attended to at the hospital or she needs to make arrangements for an upcoming visit. With donations, the group has helped make several improvements to the hospital — painting the operating room, donating a defibrillator and microscope, repairing the delivery table — and are planning on holding another fundraiser closer to Easter.
Some of the volunteers have been taking trips to the island for years and years. What keeps them going is how they feel they are helping others, Sosa said. “It’s amazing how appreciative they are,” she said.
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