Today we had a service trip, we traveled to the Guatemalan Pediatric Oncology Hospital. The experience was very emotional. The hospital we visited was financed by foreign investment, however the hospital only had about 35 beds. The ward serviced families who children had diseases like cancer, but the degree to which the kids were affected were perplexing. We learned that a large amount of these children had come over 10 hours to visit the hospital for 2-3 hours of treatment. The hospital paid for everything except food, but it was becoming problematic because many cases were cited where families were too poor to feed their child. Children were malnourished to the point that they could not be treated. The ward was peppered with children who were ill from treatment, crying babies, but there were also some kids who were very alert and happy to engage with us. We read inspirational notes to the children and played with them and gave them gifts. After about an hour and a half we met with the administration and they educated us on the background of the treatment center. We each gave our individual donations and made our way back to the ship. This experience truly illustrated the disparity in medicine between the developed and developing world.
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