By Guillermo Hidalgo, MD |
Nonetheless, it is also true that even though the disasters are "natural" in origin they seem to affect with higher intensity the poor and, in this case, those who were already without voice, house, food and clothing. This is the reality that we witnessed in El Salvador during our brief visit in a medical relief effort with DGH. At first we were anxious to go. Then, upon arrival, we did not know where to begin, the need was so overwhelming. After making some contacts with local organizations we realized that the towns affected had already received some type of aid, but the areas in the periphery of the towns-the cantones-had not. W e decided to focus on such areas, and with a team of about nine volunteers, including medical students, a nurse, a pharmacist, physician assistants, a physical therapist and doctors, saw an average of 80 patients per visit.
What we saw was the devastating effects of the earthquake and its magnitude. The faces of people denoted anxiety, incertitude and desperation. The most frequent complaints were a mix of anxiety and fear. Most of the kids had upper respiratory infections from sleeping in the cold weather under the tents. As opposed to the 1986 earthquake, this time there were actually very few cases of surgical trauma.
We visited San Agustin, a town in Usulut‡n, where there was no standing house. It was a scene of war. The fact is that the people of El Salvador have survived, in the last decade and a half, a 12-year civil war, hurricane Mitch, epidemics of dengue, methanol intoxication and rotavirus, and a couple of earthquakes. There is desperate need of your help to support the reconstruction process.
— Dr. Hidalgo is a Salvadoran Pediatric Nephrologist, Orthopedic Surgeon and DGH Advisory Council Member living in NYC, who traveled to El Salvador with DGH President Lanny Smith and other DGH volunteers immediately after the earthquake. Lanny reports that the areas of Morazán and Cabañas, where DGH works through local groups,were not significantly affected by this earthquake (see his letter from the field and photos of the earthquake). Unfortunately, Morazán is so underdeveloped it is still far behind many of the communities hard hit by this natural disaster. Your emergency aid is badly needed, as is your continued support of a healthy and socially just future for the people of El Salvador.
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