Translating for Medical Clinics

Hope Church Medical Clinics

It was a pleasure to work with the Hope Medical team from Virginia.  Every year they bring a full team of doctors, nurses and dentists and spend a week with Pastor Carlos and Iglesia Centro Cristiano Shalom doing medical clinics in the different communities Pastor Carlos has churches. 

 

 

 We traveled to a different community each day, and when we arrived people were already lined up waiting  to see the doctors and dentists.  Hope Church did clinics in these Shalom churches:  Villa Vilorio, Guayabal, Jalonga, San Pedro and La Romana.

People saw the doctors for all sorts of different things.  Many people had cold-like symptoms and head aches or body pain.  There were also people with high blood pressure and different kinds of infections.  It's hard to imagine not having the money to go to the store to purchase pain or cold medicine when you or your children have a cold or headache. 

There were also people with more serious medical conditions that could not be diagnosed or treated without specific tests or X-rays.  Instead of doing the test first and having the patient pay later, in the medical system in the Dominican Republic the doctors often fill out a prescription for a test or an X-ray.  The patient then goes to another station, has to pay for the test first, gets the results and return to the doctor for the diagnosis and treatment.  If you don't have the money, you go home with nothing but a piece of paper with a prescription on it.  Hope Church was able to help a couple of these patients with the funds to have these tests done and receive the proper treatment for their conditions.

Pulling teeth!

At the end of their time together, the doctors always asked the patients if they could pray for them. 

I've organized and participated in medical clinics before, but this was the first time I worked as a translator.  I was a little nervous at the beginning.  I didn't know if my spanish vocabulary would include the appropriate medical terminology.  I started off working with the dentists, then moved to triage and by the end of the week, I found myself translating for the doctors.  I guess I'm picking up more of the spanish language then I realize.  Praise God!  

While we were in La Romana, we brought some of the ImpactLives food that we

packed last spring in MN to share with the people in that community.