Medical Aid Trip To Honduras

Rachel Neadow | Apr 11, 2013

In February, I was given a truly amazing experience of going to Honduras to help those less fortunate. I would like to tell you about our general days at the brigades and some of what I saw.

First off, it is extremely difficult to explain my experience. There really are no words that explain what I saw, the feelings I had and the lessons I learned. We left the Toronto Airport Thursday, February 14 at 6:15 a.m. but had to be in line at 3 a.m. We ended up landing in Puerto Lempira, Honduras (which is the location where we stayed for our trip) at 5:30-6 p.m. This landing strip in Honduras is the second most dangerous landing strip in the world, because it is literally a dirt road that is located between the Hondurans’ houses, and the strip is not really that long in length to stop or take off. Our medical team consisted of registered nurses, doctors (cardiologist, respirologist, and emergency doctors), a physiotherapist, nursing students, interpreters (Hondurans), and a military entourage. In total we had near 30 individuals on our team.

Our “hotel” was located right by a lagoon and was the most beautiful sight. Every morning you could see palm trees and the setting sun over the water, which was amazing. The weather was gorgeous; every day it was at least 29 degrees but with the humidity and working on the brigades, it felt much hotter. We had some days that were mid-thirties and close to 40, which felt delightful seeing as though there was snow in Canada.

The place where we traveled to was called the “Mosquito Coast” and the Hondurans there spoke their indigenous language called “Miskito”. This meant that we had to have two Honduran interpreters at all of our brigades (one from English to Spanish, another from Spanish to Miskito).

Friday, February 15 was basically a packing/organizing day. We had to sort out all our medicine into categories (cardiac, analgesics, antibiotics, respiratory etc.), sort the donations of clothing and toys into their sections and separate all of the other supplies as well. After we separated the materials, we had to separate them once again into eight sections, because we were completing eight brigade days and needed a variety of supplies at each village. As you can imagine this took....a......long.....time!

Saturday, February 16 was our first medical brigade day and just before we were leaving, our hotel tragedy struck. A 12-year-old boy was literally crushed against a cement wall by a military truck. Thank goodness that we were a medical brigade team and obtained experienced doctors and nurses in these type of emergency situations. A great deal of life threatening scenarios happened to this young boy, but three of our doctors/nurses ended up saving his life in the end!

Our medical brigade days were quite similar in each of the villages we attended. We usually left our hotel by 7 a.m. because the villages were usually an hour or longer drive away. We had two villages where we HAD to take boats, so local fisherman took us on these days.

Basically a brigade day looked like this: We would set up different “stations”. We had a registration area where the Hondurans in the village would tell one of our interpreters their name, age, and date of birth. From here they went to the Triage area, and this was just like a normal triage area in a hospital where individuals described their main complaints and reasons for being at the brigade. From here either the people would be sent to the dentist or doctors, depending on their major complaints. And then the last station was the pharmacy area, where the Hondurans would pick up their prescriptions they received from the doctors, as well as food, clothing and toys.

I got to work at every station and learned more about nursing in these two weeks than actually being in placements in Canada. I believe this was because everything was hands on constantly, and I was doing assessments that I have never done before. The doctors were extremely great at getting us nursing students to come and see abnormalities within patients and explained to us what it was, why it happened and how to treat it.

During the brigade days the nursing students had to complete a health promotion project. So I did the basic process of how to brush your teeth.

Every single Honduran was extremely grateful for our help and many of the mothers would hug us and cry when we gave them food supplies. One of the most inspiring things I saw while in Honduras was how thankful and generous the Hondurans were. We would be going to their villages to help them because they were lacking food, clean accessible water and health care, but when we were leaving their villages they would want to give us a large portion of their coconuts, even though they were limited in food.

This experience truly changed my perspective and made me feel extremely selfish about my life back in Canada. These individuals were so happy with the small amount of resources they had, but still I never saw them without a smile on their faces. The only thing that mattered to them was their families and the love that they provided to them. It was inspiring and very emotional to see that these people living in extreme poverty loved their life so much, while people back in Canada complain about not having a MacBook or not liking the food their parents make them. I am not a picky eater, but I will never complain about any food after seeing how these Hondurans literally go without food for a few days, or are working at age five to bring in some money for their families.

The only thing I want to say is that if anyone ever gets the opportunity to go through an experience like this....do it. Do not worry about money, or anything like that. You may never get another chance to do something so meaningful and life changing ever again in your life. This was by far the best experience I have ever had and cannot wait to go back to Honduras or another Third World Country to help those in need. This experience set my mind 100% on the fact that I want to be a nurse, and this is what I am going to do for the rest of my life!

I wish to extend a huge thank you to all the people who made donations and contributed to my Honduras funding. It truly made a difference on the amount of medical supplies we were able to buy and provide to the Hondurans. And a special thanks to Art Goodfellow, Lisa Hamilton, Judy Bertrim and Jane Neadow who generously gave back their prize money they “won” from the $100 calendar at my chili dinner.