Kaiser Permanente MD comes full circle, aiding poor in Guatemala

For Dr. Sarah Beekley, traveling to Guatemala to a town 8,000 feet up in the mountains to care for the medically underserved was coming full circle.
“When I was a college junior, I did health promotion in rural Guatemala and always dreamed of going back,” says the Kaiser Permanente Redwood City Physician.
In fact, her collegiate trip to Guatemala many years ago with “Los Amigos de las Americas” convinced Sarah Beekley to become a physician.
“I saw such a huge health need among the Mayan people, I hoped I could help some day.”
That day came recently when Dr. Beekley and a group of current and former Kaiser Permanente physicians, traveled to San Francisco el Alto, a rural village with poor access to health care, off the Pan-American Highway not far from Quetzaltenango in Guatemala. The doctors worked under the aegis of Faith in Practice, a non-profit ecumenical Christian organization that brings medical and dental care to Guatemala.
“Because the town is at 8,000 feet altitude, many of our patients had eye problems because of the intense sunlight,” said Dr. Beekley. “We gave away hundreds of pairs of sunglasses.”
Dr. Beekley even convinced one very traditional, elderly woman to wear the sun glasses because she’d look like “an American movie star”. It was a simple solution to a chronic problem.
“I must admit she looked pretty suave in her new shades,” smiled Dr. Beekley.
But not all the health problems the team encountered in Guatemala were solved with solved simply and with a smile. Many of the children coming to the clinic suffered severe developmental delays because of birth difficulties or genetic disorders. Some had to be carried to the clinic.
“We gave away wheelchairs and walkers,” says Dr. Beekley, “and while that helped, we couldn’t always solve the underlying problems.”
The team of doctors and volunteers saw a total of 2337 patients in 4 days at San Francisco el Alto and nearby Momostenango. Every medically eligible patient received parasite medication, flu vaccination, and a consultation with a clinician. If needed, they also received eyeglasses, dental extractions, and GYN care.
“Sometimes just talking to the patients made all the difference,” says Dr. Beekley. She recounted the case of a mom unusually distraught and overly anxious about her 11-year-old son having minor nosebleeds. “Once I learned the real source of her anxiety, that her husband had died two weeks earlier, I could offer the right words to reassure her and she left smiling.”
While San Francisco el Alto hosts one of the largest market days in Central America, with stalls filled with colorful hand-made goods and locally-grown fruit and vegetables, 80-percent of the town is chronically malnourished due to poverty. Nearly all the children have parasites due to unclean water, drunk from local streams.
“I did a lot of counseling about safer water and safer food preparation,” says Dr. Beekley, who is not only a physician but a mom as well. “I wasn’t able to prescribe ‘lots of whole milk and peanut butter’ for better kids’ nutrition, like we do in the States.”
The medical team’s youngest patient was 20 days old, the eldest a woman 99 (and 8 months, she insisted). But Dr. Beekley’s most rewarding experience was treating an 8-year-old boy suffering weekly dangerous grand mal seizures. His family could not afford medicine or an arduous trip to a distant Faith in Practice hospital for an MRI and pediatric neurology evaluation. But working with the team, a referral was arranged, a pharmacist donated the medicine, and volunteers agreed to transport the patient and his family.
“It was very gratifying to know that the hard work of our team would have a sustained benefit long after we were home, say Dr. Beekley, now hard at work at the brand new Kaiser Permanente Redwood City Hospital. “ I will look back on this experience knowing that with the help of Faith in Practice I helped make a real difference in the life of this one family. Who can ask for better?”