This fall, a medical missions team, including five Ascension Medical Group (AMG) Providence associates, arrived in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica to offer their healthcare skills. They donated their personal time and partnered with a local clinic and church to improve the health of a poor and vulnerable community thousands of miles from home.
The team saw 144 patients in just a few days, some of whom had walked for miles across the pineapple fields of the Sarapiqui region. Men, women and children came with needs ranging from basic exams to conditions requiring surgical referrals. Tarean Odom, Physician Office Manager for AMG Providence Infectious Diseases, Neurosurgical and Sleep Clinic, ran the clinic’s logistics and appointment schedule. She said the need for women’s healthcare services was overwhelming.
“Some of the women had given birth to 10 or 15 children and now they had a prolapsed bladder or a prolapsed uterus,” Odom said. “They could wait two years before being able to see a surgeon. Our obstetrician had a pocket ultrasound which was helpful because the clinic didn’t have that kind of equipment. This community doesn’t have access to a lot of things we take for granted.”
Team leader Kim Barnett, PA-C, Physician Assistant at Providence Neurosurgical Associates, has led medical missions trips to Puerto Viejo since 2017. “Costa Rica has a universal health system and is short on resources and physicians,” she said. “People often have to wait several months to years for what we consider basic healthcare services. The limited access also makes preventative medicine unavailable. Our teams try to fill in some of the gaps.”
One man arrived needing emergency care that the clinic couldn’t offer and the patient couldn’t afford. So the team paid his emergency room fees out of funds set aside for referrals and prescriptions.
“Healthcare there is very expensive,” Odom added. “Our whole goal was to help them get through the next six months until another team comes.”
Odom said she was humbled by the gratitude the community offered the team. “You don’t know where these patients are coming from. They show up and they’re so thankful. You don’t realize it but then they walk out and they’re walking 45 minutes to an hour or they’re going back to four walls and that’s it,” she said.
Barnett said she’s planning the next trip to Puerto Viejo for February 2025 and will hopefully lead teams every six months. She wants to expand the clinic’s offerings to help even more in the future.
We’re proud of these associates who have made service to the poor and vulnerable a way of life. Thank you for putting our mission into action.
These associates exemplify Ascension’s values to serve the poor with generosity of spirit.