A Honduras Hospital Finds Hope
Submitted by CAMO on Mon, 02/06/2012 - 1:42pm
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by Sandra Swanson
The Rotarian
“The toughest job you’ll ever love.” That message resonated with Kathy Tschiegg in 1979, as she watched a Peace Corps public service announcement. One month later, she arrived in Honduras for an experience the tag line could only hint at.
The Peace Corps placed Tschiegg, then a 23-year-old nurse, at a hospital in the remote village of Santa Rosa de Copán. It wasn’t her first choice. Dogs ran freely through the central courtyard of the open building, which was so cold in October that nurses had trouble locating veins for IVs. In the hallways, the smell of infections lingered.
Toughest job? Yes. As for love – maybe not at first sight. During her initial visit, Tschiegg wrote in her journal: “This is a God-forsaken place.” During the next two years, she became familiar with death. Local crops failed in 1981, leading to rampant malnutrition; in one month alone, she saw 31 children die. After leaving Honduras, “I was angry,” says Tschiegg.
In 1989, she returned to the village, saw conditions were worse, and began to lay the groundwork for a nonprofit that could help. Tschiegg went back to school and earned a business degree while working in the emergency room at an Ohio hospital. By 1993, she had incorporated Central American Medical Outreach (CAMO), which provides medical supplies and training to the hospital in Santa Rosa de Copán. “I started this out of a duffel bag in my living room,” she says. Not bad for an organization that was donating US$2 million in supplies by 1998.
In 1997, she joined the Rotary Club of Orrville, Ohio. During the past decade, Tschiegg has been honored with two Paul Harris Fellow recognitions. She notes that local Rotary clubs have provided donations for CAMO and helped with Rotary Foundation Matching Grants – those funds have helped purchase a surgical eye microscope and rid the hospital’s day care of mold and mildew, for instance. But Rotary’s support isn’t just financial. “I’m in Honduras for six months and [in Ohio] for six months. My life is so fragmented,” she says. “Rotary helps me feel more attached to the community. They care about me, they care about CAMO.” She notes that most of her Honduras friends involved with CAMO are also Rotarians.
Fifteen years ago, the hospital’s equipment amounted to two OR tables, an anesthesia machine, and an X-ray unit. Thanks to Rotary and CAMO, it now has incubators, suction machines, heart monitors, ultrasound machines, and a prosthetics lab, as well as dedicated training from some of the top U.S. medical experts. Tschiegg estimates that the hospital’s ventilators alone save one life every two days. Overall, the services provided affect 93,000 people each year, she says.
“It has shaped my life,” says Tschiegg. “I am totally engrossed in helping this community.”
Click here to view the Rotary's full article at Rotary.org
