After a long night of redeye flights we finally made it to Guatemala City!
Surgeons, Pediatricians, nurses, and other volunteers have come from the Boston, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Oregon, California, Washington, Idaho, Texas, and Guatemala to help orchestrate this amazing operation. The group consists of many veteran medical mission volunteers as well as a few first timers. We will be spending the next two weeks operating on many children who may not have otherwise had access to the specialty care they need.
Pictured above is one of our amazing volunteer nurses Melanie Buoncristiani holding a poster that our Guatemalan Rotarian hosts created to inform local communities about the services we will be offering over the next two weeks. We have been told that there will be at least 75 patients and their families showing up to the clinic for screening tomorrow.
All of our surgeries and initial screening clinic day will be held in the hospital Aprofam in Zona 1 of Guatemala City.
After landing in Guatemala the team ventured to hospital Aprofam with our local Rotarian hosts to tour the facilities before our first day of clinic. The local medical staff is very welcoming and patient with our barrage of questions as we navigate this new scenery. Cots fill the pre-operative wards where our patients will be able to stay the night before surgery. Many patients will be traveling long distances with their families in order to receive treatment, so the local Rotarians have set up places for both patients and families to stay before and during their procedures.
Tomorrow we begin our first day of clinic at 6:30 am. Let the adventure begin!