Chronic Conditions Often Unmanaged
For the reasons mentioned above, particularly among adults, chronic conditions are common and largely unmanaged. In San Juan’s neighboring communities, roughly one in five adults has high blood pressure and one in eight has diabetes, alongside the daily burden of respiratory infection,stomach illness, parasites, and the joint and back pain of a life of hard physical work. Fortunately, much of this is treatable!
High Rate of Malnutrition
Guatemala has the highest rate of chronic childhood malnutrition in the Western Hemisphere. Staggeringly, nearly half of all children under five are chronically malnourished, and among the indigenous highland communities we will serve, the rate is higher still, reaching well over fifty percent and, in the hardest-hit areas, as many as seven or eight children in ten. Our team travels with a dedicated pediatric malnutrition protocol and the means to screen, treat, and refer.
Dental care is severely limited in the San Juan Sacatepequez area. Although specific data are lacking for adult dentition, in low-access populations like this one, adult dental disease is dominated by accumulated untreated decay and teeth already lost or broken to the roots, with almost no attempts at restoration. We expect our adult dental chairs to fill with painful, broken-down, and non-restorable teeth, retained roots, and abscesses. In a study across five geographically distinct Guatemalan communities, 90% of 9-12-year-old children had dental caries. Guatemala does not fluoridate public water, and the low natural fluoride levels track with the high decay. Most of these children have untreated decay, with essentially nothing restored and dental access limited to extractions. This is a population of children with near-universal active decay, much of it advancing to pulp involvement, abscesses, and pain.
Adults and children here also go without something as simple as an eye exam. Uncorrected vision is one of the most common and easiest-to-correct causes of impairment in childhood, yet it often goes undetected because a child does not know what clear sight should look like. Vision screening and a pair of glasses, given on a single visit, can change how a child learns for years, provide safety, and open a new world to adults.
On this trip, there will likely be a be people from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds seeking care. Some may be able to be referred to a local care provider or organization for ongoing health treatment, others may receive one-stop care in our clinic, while still others may have chronic or terminal health issues that we may not be able to treat. Most importantly, all of these individuals will be given an opportunity to
talk with someone from the spiritual care team. People are physical, emotional, and spiritual beings. If we haven’t offered to care for them holistically then we’re missing a beautiful opportunity that God has given us as medical professionals, spiritual care providers, and mission partners.