Our gardener Guillermo's eight-year-old son, Juan Pablo, has been living through a miserable year. He's been in the hospital twice with pneumonia, and has never turned back into a playful, energetic kid. Instead, he spends mch of this time lying in bed watching television in his dark, damp house. For months, every time Guillermo came to work, I'd ask him how Juan Pablo was. "Poco bien," he'd say. I'd ask him to please let me know if there was anything we could do.
Guillermo and his wife, Adelina, have been taking Juan Pablo to the Hospital Civil in Xalapa. They do this as beneficiaries of the program of Seguro Popular, or people's insurance. The Mexican Constitution guarantees health care:
Toda persona tiene derecho a la protección de la salud, Toda persona tiene derecho a disfrutar de vivienda digna y decorosa, Es obligación de los padres satisfacer las necesidades y la salud física y mental de los menores”.
Which, translated, says, "Every person has the right to protection of their health. Every person as he right to enjoy decent and respectable housing. It is the obligation of the parents to take cae of the necessities and of the physical ad mental health of their dependent childen." Of course there's a gap between the Constitution and reality, but still, the ideal is there. And the efforts to fulfill the obligation are visible everywhere, from the hand-painted health education signs on buildings in the smallest town to the very large Hospital Civil in Xalapa.
The Hospital Civil is a crowded, busy place, and yet it gives good basic care, and that's just what Juan Pablo got, except that for country people, it is confusing. From a large variety of providers they received tons of instructions, all carbon copies, all in small letters and complicated words. There also came to be a significant number of tests and medicines they had to pay for themselves.
And the energy-boosting diet for Juan Pablo was beyond their means. As an aside here, poor nutrition is a substantial problem. I've harped on this before. Junk food is ubiquitous and often less expensive and obviously more eye-catching than nourishing food, and in any case, money is tight and fresh food not so available.*
We helped some financially, but the family struggled to make sense of what was going on. I decided to call Charlie Swindull, a retired nurse who lives in El Grande, outside of Coatepec.
Charlie is a rather remarkable American woman. If I remember correctly (I am sure she will correct me if I have this wrong) Charlie decided she couldn't retire and live decently on her pension in the US, so she would move to Mexico. She didn't want to go to one of the standard US retirement communities, but took a pin (that may be metaphorical) and blindly stabbed the map of Mexico and hit our area. Arriving a year before we did, she knew no Spanish, no people and was single. Yet she has managed to make quite a fine life here.
I think most of her time is spent taking care of health problems for poor kids, mostly dental and eye difficulties. She has created a network of doctors and dentists for them and a small foundation which provides some financing, although I suspect Charlie provides a fair amount herself. I have created a page which you can find in the left sidebar which is Charlie's last email to supporters in the US. It explains what she does quite well. Please check out the page. If any of you would like to donate money, please just use the comment form below to ask. I will then see your email via the magic of TypePad, and I will provide you with the information you need.
Anyway, Charlie made an appointment for Guillermo's son, Juan Pablo, with la Dra. Jania Vargas in Coatepec. La doctora went over all the papers Guillermo and Adelina had collected and summarized the important items on one piece of paper, with very clear and to-the-point instructions and suggestions for further nutritional additives. She spoke clearly and directly, never condescended, answered all the parents' questions. She said she would see Juan Pablo again in February if all went well.
Here is a picture of Juan Pablo and la Dra Jania after the appointment.
This seemed to make a huge difference to Juan Pablo and his parents. He laughed and skipped back to the car holding Guillermo's hand. Guillermo and Adelina hugged him and laughed with him.
There is more to this story. Soon.
*Fresh fruits and vegetables are available, but for people in the informal economy as Guillermo is, or as housekeepers or small store owners or people who work on building local houses and so forth are, the fruits and vegetables are not cheap. For us they are cheap, for them, no. In our colonia, most people do not grow many of their own vegetables as they really don't have space even though we are surrounded by countryside planted in coffee and bananas.