2006 Jamaica Medical Mission

(Author's Note: This blog entry recounts my participation with a 6-day medical mission in Jamaica. It's for my future recollection as much as anything. The words are mine alone as are any misstatements or omissions. I do not represent the Jamaica Medical Mission team or speak for any other member. While I hope you will enjoy reading this, I make no apology for its length.)

During the first week of February, I spent six days in Jamaica on a medical mission. Ostensibly a vacation to a beautiful Caribbean island, nearly all of my time was spent inside a church hall dispensing prescription medications to hundreds of Jamaicans. It was a remarkable experience unlike anything I had ever done before.

The Jamaica Medical Mission originated more than 10 years ago as an international outreach effort at my church, St. John's Episcopal, in Ellicott City, Maryland. Two St. John's parishioners - Stuart Mowatt, a US citizen of Jamaican heritage, and Dr. Elaine Trogdon, a Maryland pediatrician - and the then rector, established a sister parish relationship with St. Mary's, an Anglican church in Port Maria, Jamaica. The Jamaica Medical Mission became an outgrowth of St. John's relationship with St. Mary's. Teams of doctors and nurses recruited by Stuart and Dr. Trogdon, as well as St. John's parishioners to provide support, traveled annually to Jamaica to treat people who might not otherwise have ready access to medical care. Eventually, Stuart retired to Florida, where he recruited additional doctors, nurses, and support at his new church, Holy Sacrament Episcopal, in Pembroke Pines. Many from the Florida contingent of the Jamaica Medical Mission are themselves Jamaican, giving the team a collegial diversity and beneficial balance. This year's Jamaica Medical Mission team consisted of 15 from Maryland and 9 from Florida. I found everyone on the mission team immeasurably dedicated and eminently delightful. That we were all Episcopalian only assured a good time would be had by all. (Hang with Episcopalians for a while... you'll know.)

The medical team consisted of two internists, two pediatricians, an ob/gyn, a psychiatrist, a dentist, and a physical therapist with nurses to support them all. (Patient examination space at St. Mary's, not medical volunteers, is the limiting factor for the Mission.) We worked from 9 AM to 7 PM Wednesday to Friday as well as a half-day Saturday. Each doctor evaluated and treated about 45 patients a day. Scores of Jamaicans seeking treatment awaited us each morning in the St. Mary's parish hall when we arrived, hoping to be seen by one of the medical staff. Over 1,500 prescriptions, from amoxicillin to Zyrtec, were dispensed.

Morning Prayer, traditionally and wonderfully Anglican, began our days. Fellowship and traditional Jamaican food on the rooftop of Miss Essie's Restaurant in Port Maria ended them. We had almost no time for ourselves although I did manage to cadge time early each morning to bird the hotel grounds. (I got 10 life birds including 4 species endemic to Jamaica.)

Because it's a medical mission, the role of lay participation is somewhat limited. A third of the 24-member team provided support to the doctors, dentists, nurses, and therapists. Support included such tasks as registration, triage, baby-sitting, and in my case, manning the pharmacy. With the exception of a short lunch break, every team member was busy all the time. But despite the constant activity at a single work site, members of the team experienced Jamaica and Jamaicans far more than your typical blue-haired cruise ship passenger ever could.

For me, language was sometimes challenging but never insurmountable. Jamaica is the third most populous Anglophone nation in the Americas; English is the language of government and education. In some conversations I had, Jamaican Creole started off being their language of choice. But when my dumb looks made it clear I understood nothing of what was being said, folks would generally back their way down to (oftentimes heavily accented) English I could understand. That the people of Jamaica speak English makes participation on the mission much more rewarding. We can really connect with the people we are visiting; there are no interpreters getting in the way.

I return from Jamaica with few poignant vignettes or amusing anecdotes. Those cute snippets bloggers relish didn't make it back with me. How do you extract dedication, generosity, fellowship, or - to use a God-word - ministry from a continuum and plop it down in a weblog? Were I to try, I'm sure the words would fall flat. To be sure, there were dozens of encounters, conversations, and moments. But to select one or two of these, picked cleanly from the whole, as if to say "How cool is that?" would be tough.

Two occasions do stand out, however. Saturday night, the parishioners of St. Mary's treated the Mission team to a delicious Jamaican dinner. We feasted on jerk chicken and pork, ackee and saltfish, peas and rice, festival, callaloo, and Red Stripe beer, which, by the way, I learned to open with a Dasani bottle. It was all delicious. (Well, OK, maybe the soup did have some meat in it we just couldn't quite identify.) Following dinner there was music and dancing and thank-yous.

The Sunday worship service was the other memorable occasion. Simultaneously Anglican and Jamaican, familiar yet exotic, worship in St. Mary's was as spiritual an experience as I've ever had. The exchange of the Peace was considerably more affecting than I came prepared for. That I was asked to read the Epistle was icing on the cake.

My suburban sensibilities didn't always align with the realities of everyday life in Jamaica. Jamaica is, after all, a third world country. I encountered incongruities. Rastafarians closely matching the American stereotype - bearded with long hair tucked into yellow, green, red, and black knit hats - walk along the road. In most countries, driving on the left is curious. In Jamaica, driving on the left is terrifying. Goats, chickens, and other domesticated animals roam unfettered. Dogs were the animals that always caught my eye. The canine protection authorities of central Maryland generally prohibit free-range dogs. By contrast, Jamaican dogs - laid-back, amiable, and generic - come and go as they please. Open-air burning of rubbish is commonplace. Burned and burning piles of trash scar the shore and roadside. Away from resorts, litter and debris is ubiquitous. Despite the warmth and hospitality shown by every Jamaican I met, experienced team members cautioned the first-timers against visiting Oracabessa (where I stayed) or Port Maria (where I worked) alone. Don't drink the water I was told, although I eventually did so without ill effect. I dispensed pregnancy test kits to girls that couldn't have been more than 14 years old.

Jamaicans face many economic hardships. Fluctuations in agricultural productivity, inflation, and competition from multinational corporations result in disparate standards of living, though no one I saw approached what I think of as middle-class America. Many homes appeared decrepit; some looked OK. Some people have refrigerators; some don't. Cell phones seem commonplace; many households don't have land lines. But despite what Americans would think of as a paucity of material wealth, the Jamaican people I encountered seemed joyous and content with their lives. Everyone at St. Mary's was extremely generous to the Medical Mission team, plying us with hugs, food, Red Stripe, and encouraging words.

Which brings me to a question I still ponder: Why go to Jamaica? Why Port Maria? Why there... why that spot? Some few hundred Port Marians receive a smattering of medical care from us. Big deal. There's little follow-up treatment and just as many Port Marians are turned away. What about the millions of Jamaicans the team couldn't treat? The team goes only once a year. Why bother when there's so much left undone, so much more work to do? It's hopeless. It can't make a difference.

I won't pretend to know what motivates the other members of the team. I scarcely understand my own motivation. Maybe they go to preach the Gospel ("Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."). Maybe it's to fulfill the second of the Great Commandments ("You shall love your neighbor as yourself.") Maybe it's pro bono work or professional ethic. Maybe it's to secure a place in heaven or simply feel worthwhile in a tropical paradise.

Whatever the reasons, for nearly 1,000 Jamaican men, women, and children, the doctors and nurses of the Jamaica Medical Mission had impact. Previously undetected cases of hypertension and diabetes were diagnosed, infections were cured, discomforts alleviated, toothaches relieved, ailments treated, rashes balmed, mothers educated, children hugged, worries soothed, humans touched. The team makes a difference. We help the people of Jamaica. Now. Today. This instant. And they help us. The healing goes in two directions. The motivations of the individual team members, the larger picture, the apparent hopelessness, the work left to do, none of that matters. It's all present tense. "Ease the pain," as Stuart Mowatt, the Mission's leader, instructed me more than once. "That's why we're here."

And that's what will take me back.
K-

More pictures appear after the jump. Click on the thumbnails for a larger view.