A medical team from Moose Jaw will be heading to Patzun, Guatemala in the new year to provide much-needed support to people in need.

Dr. Mark Brown is a member of the Moose Jaw International Medical Mission (MJIMM), which will leave for Guatemala on Feb. 2, 2023. This will be the sixth mission for the group. The first trip was back in 2016.

"We, unfortunately, missed out the last couple of years because of the pandemic, but we've got our team together again and we're heading out," said Brown.

"We're going to be going out there to do surgical work. We've got a full slate of operations that we're going to be doing for a whole week at a hospital in Guatemala. We are also going to have a medical team that will be doing outreach clinics in remote communities where the people of Guatemala don't have any healthcare whatsoever. The third aspect of our work is the stove teams where we install wood-burning stoves in underprivileged people's homes. One of the big illnesses that we see out there is chronic cough because of smoke inhalation. The stoves are excellent in terms of reducing exposure to the smoke. We also install water filters as well and also do home visits there."

Brown notes the surgical team focuses on general surgery and gynecology, with a lot of the work focusing on fixing hernias and taking out gallbladders, and doing hysterectomies. He says in many cases, these are significant and life-changing surgeries for these people because a lot of them do manual labour.

MJIMM has close to 40 members, most of them hailing from Moose Jaw, with others coming from Regina, Prince Albert, and Vernon, B.C. The team consists of doctors and nurses which includes specialists, surgeons, gynecologists, family doctors, operating room nurses, recovery nurses and registered nurses. There is also the stove team, many of whom have been on previous trips. They work a lot with a local community hospital in the city of Patzun called Clinica Corpus Christi, and partner with the Guatemala branch of Days for Girls and a Canadian charity called Bridges of Hope.

MJIMM GUATEMALAMembers of MJIMM having some fun with kids on the 2020 trip - Photo Courtesy Facebook

Brown explained why they decided to focus their efforts on Guatemala.

"We were supposed to go on a mission trip to West Africa about a decade ago and then unfortunately the Ebola virus pandemic happened and we didn't end up going. Somebody, somehow, found out that we were putting a team together and that we wanted to do this medical work and hooked us up with this awesome organization and hospital in Guatemala and we ended up going down to Guatemala in 2016 for the first time and we've never looked back. It's become a once-a-year trip since then."

Moose Jaw International Medical Mission covers its own cost of the trip, with members expected to pay for their own flights plus make a financial contribution towards the trip. Brown says they need to raise about $50,000.

The Rotary Club of Moose Jaw recently made a $10,000 donation towards the cause.

"We are so grateful to Rotary," added Brown. "They've been really supportive of us and they'll continue to support us and we're blown away by that amount of money."

Vice President Glen Blager explained why the Rotary Club decided to support this particular initiative.

"If you've ever lived in a third world country, you know what those people don't have, as compared to what we have. When they need to go see the doctor, they can't, because they can't afford to. People like this team make medical assistance available to them, and a huge benefit to the people of Guatemala. Not only can they work more, because they're not sick, they can do better education, etc."

Maggie Metke made the trip back in 2019 and 2020, however she won't be making the journey this time around.

"It's a very fulfilling experience," she commented. "It's actually more work than I thought it would be. I was part of a surgical team, so I worked in the operating room as I'm an operating room nurse. From about 7 am until 7 pm, you're running surgeries. They're pretty heavy days."

Metke says many of the women they see have over a dozen children so being able to provide them with hysterectomies is very life-changing for them.

"They're actually the most thankful people you will ever meet. I remember one patient, her and her husband were about to leave and they insisted on talking to the surgeon. All her and her husband wanted to do was give them a huge hug and it was honestly one of the most heartwarming things I've ever seen."

She notes without the services of MJIMM, many of the people may not get the services they require or receive poor quality of care.

"It was really important for me to be part of it because in my mind, if you have a skill or if you're able to help others then I feel like you should. It's really important to give back to your community as well as any other communities for people that are in more need."

For more information on the trip or to support the cause, you can find MJIMM on Facebook.