Last week, I stayed in the city of Trujillo, and traveled with the medical students two hours each way to Rigores (middle of NOWHERE) to do a clinic. It was an intense week, due to the levels of need that were there.
It was the first brigade Rigores had hosted, and the first IU student-led "alternative" spring break. It went fairly smoothly for a first trip, due to the help of many people who jumped in and offered their time to help out the group.
The one thing that was a consistent problem was trying to spread limited resources too thinly. Fifteen communities had been promised time with the doctors, and they planned on allotting a certain number of patients per community. There was intense pressure on Saudy, the community organizer, and me, the triage director (haha) to get ALL of the patients seen. We started off the first day by not getting to the last thirty patients who had been triaged, and thus were behind every day after as we started off by finishing up a community from the day before.
Thursday was the last day, and Saudy had a breakdown. There were five communities, and each had been allotted 20 spots. However, everyone who had a physical complaint from the community came anyway, and it was up to the community leader to select 20 of those people to receive medical attention. Saudy had to say no to many people, and hated doing it. It's hard to say no to people who are sick. I ended up saying more no's, and had an emergency counseling session with Saudy, who had an emotional breakdown after saying one "no" too many. (This is something I understand).
The week brought up the heart-wrenching question of how we distribute what we have, and the underlying tension of doing service work in the developing world. No matter how much you do, it's never enough, there is always another need just around the corner to be met.
I told Saudy to focus not on the people she couldn't help but those she had helped. The team saw 647 medical patients alone. That is amazing. We helped two hydrocephalic kids get shunts.
But there is so much more to do. That night I explained to the team what had been going on in triage, since I was really the only one to see that, and shared my heart about maintaining the tension of there is so much need, and so little I can do, yet I can do something with what I have.
May none of us escape the call to give, and may the fact that we will not fully end poverty still not discourage us from giving to those in need.
