Indigenous Peoples’ Day - or - what good can come out of having a concussion?

It was almost 6:00 am local time and it was still dark. I was carrying a table (table-feet first, tabletop against my chest) to prepare for a group session of a group of healthcare providers. We were on a medical mission in central Yucatán peninsula in Mexico serving locals including indigenous Maya people with poor access to healthcare. These quiet, hard-working and equally stoic and resilient people rooted in a highly sophisticated civilization have suffered much over the past centuries under colonial rule. I was looking forward to seeing the pregnant patients of the village for prenatal care including ultrasound later that morning.

But - things changed abruptly: On the poorly lit path I carried the table (feet first) and suddenly hit an invisible obstruction. The recoil pushed me backwards, I lost my balance at the path’s edge and fell - head first, table second - hitting the concrete floor and blacked out.

After a 2.5 hours (!) rumbling drive I arrived at the closest town with a CT scan in the back of a van owned and driven by one of the volunteers while being closely observed by one of our nurses (Thanks again, Gary!). After 2 additional hours in the public hospital’s ER the CT was finally done (I was brought there not on a stretcher but in a rumbling wheelchair). No radiologist around for interpretation, so being one myself, I was shown a cellphone recording of the ct scan to look at (1 additional hour later). How relieved I was to see just a broken nose and not any bleeding inside my head (all this while having dizziness, vertigo, pain and lightheadedness)! I was discharged a few hours later, of course ONLY after the CT scan, saline infusion and ER stay had been paid in cash. 60+ hours later I was seeing patients again.

This morning, I checked my iPad during breakfast for the latest news. I learned about today being indigenous peoples day in addition to Columbus Day and the President’s appeal to recognize and address their plight in both past and present.

I realized, I was beyond lucky during my misadventure in Mexico! True, I got to the hospital only after 2.5 hours and had to wait another 2 to get my CT scan. I had to interpret it because no radiologist was around. I had to pay to be discharged. In my place, a local campesino or his wife will not even make it to the hospital, because there is no van to transport them and they would not be able to pay for the transport if there were. Even if they are close to a hospital, they won’t be able to pay for the CT scan, infusions or ER stay.

How is this related to the indigenous people? Well - Is it not the indigenous communities (whether in the US, Canada, Latin America, Africa, Asia), the American Indian, the Maya, the Ati or the Igorot, that to this day face the greatest hurdles in accessing even basic healthcare due to their location far away from modern cities - displaced by European invaders to places where there are few, if any, doctors or hospitals?

So, where is the light at the end of the tunnel here? Here it is: The driver of my van turned out to be a local congressman who happened to volunteer for our mission. Unhappy with his government’s healthcare policies and having learned about the work of LMI, he approached me again 3 days later expressing his desire to improve maternal mortality in his district.

We agreed to explore holding a future mission project there. How much work is there to be done in and beyond treating individual patient. I am grateful for being part of the LMI team, which tries to tackle this work.