Doctors Without
Borders share stories
with Alpine residents
By Chris
Mac Kenzie
The Alpine Sun
ALPINE — “In Angola,” explained Sylvia Martinez RN, “there’s
a 70 percent death rate for newborn babies or their mothers, or
both. They die of toxemia. I was there for five months, and we
delivered 18 babies and managed to save 12 of them.”
Martinez was describing her experiences while serving
with Doctors Without Borders during Project Angola, 2004. On April
14, at 10 a.m. in Fuller Hall, members of the Guild and their
guests will learn more about her life and work there.
“The infant death rate is so high, “ she said, “
because the mothers have absolutely no pre-natal care or medical
help during delivery or afterwards for their babies. There is no
clean water, no medicines; the women know nothing about hygiene.
Both the babies and mothers are malnourished as the proper foods
just aren’t available.”
Doctors Without Borders is an international
organization that includes all kinds of medical personnel,
doctors, technicians, nurses and interpreters who volunteer to go
wherever help is needed. They leave their own practices and serve
without pay for various lengths of time.
Martinez, a retired hospital inspector still doing a
great deal of consulting, is skilled in First Aid, CPR and a
member of the California Disaster Preparedness Team, ready to
report anywhere in the word where help is needed. Not only has she
been on duty during California disasters, she went to New Orleans
for Katrina, and in Guam after the Tsunami. It was in Guam that
she met of the Doctors and heard about their work.
“It sounded like something I was qualified to do,” she
said, so after I returned home to San Diego, I got an appointment
for an interview in the New York office. The main office is in
Paris. It turned out that there had just been an outbreak of
sleeping sickness in Angola, and they needed to put a team
together immediately.”
“We had two doctors, two lab technicians and one nurse,
me. Angola has been undergoing civil war for the past 30 years so
the little town where we were to serve, Camababela, had absolutely
nothing. We built a primitive sort of clinic, which could function
as a base camp. Then we would travel out to the little villages.
It was very dangerous as there were left-over land mines
everywhere, so we had to be extremely careful.”
“The people use 18 different dialects, mixtures of
Spanish and Portuguese, so one of the requirements for duty was to
be literate in one or the other. I can speak Spanish. We used
interpreters whenever we could find them, as it is very difficult
to treat a patient if he can’t tell you what is wrong. Hostilities
broke out again in five months so we were called home before we
could really complete our job.”
Martinez is anxious to go back again when the situation
permits. “The problem in Angola, “she says, “is that the country
is controlled by corrupt men who made their fortunes in petroleum
and diamond mines. They also have a communistic slant to their
governing. It creates some very real problems.”
She has no pictures to show of her trip, as their
cameras were confiscated at the border when entering the country.
Meantime back home in San Diego, she has given 40
speeches in the past two years trying to promote better health
care and improve the situation in the poverty-stricken nation,
which literally has nothing. “The UN could change things if they
would only be willing to take charge,” she said.
The Guild is inviting the public to come hear Martinez
on Saturday, April 14, at a special presentation at Alpine
Community Church. The meeting is open to everyone. Flora Thompson,
president of the Guild, is promising complimentary refreshments
following the meeting.
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