Partners in Health Dead End

Those of you who have read Mountains Beyond Mountains about Paul Farmer's work in Haiti can imagine our excitement when we discovered that his organization, Partners is Health, has an operation in Chiapas! We realized this when reading the book a couple of years ago but did not pursue a relationship at first because the clinic in Ocosingo was so focused on construction, not operation. But as the clinic completion approaches, we have been trying to get information from other nonprofit clinic operators here in Mexico. One of those is Partners in Health's operation in the tiny mountain town of Amatan, Chiapas, and the other on the other side of Mexico in the state of Chihuahua with Mexico Medical Missions. Just this same week, 60 Minutes covered Paul Farmer & Partners in Health and, ironically, referenced the operation in Mexico.

The operation in Amatan seemed like the logical first choice of places to visit, mostly because of location and similarity of patient populations. We contacted the Boston office of PIH, got names & contact information here in Chiapas, and made our appointment to visit. Well....like many things here, others decided to go. When you involve more people in getting information, it's always desirable here. So...off we went to Amatan. John, Ginny, Pablo and the president and secretary of the synod. 6 hours each way with a church-provided tamale breakfast on the way and a church-provided turkey soup dinner on the return trip. All for nothing.

To reach Amatan, the only way to get there was to go into the state of Tabasco to the north, come back down into Chiapas and then way, way, WAY up into the mountains. All the way up those final mountains we were talking about the curiosity of establishing such an operation in such an isolated place. When we finally arrived, Amatan turned out to be a fairly large town with many steep and narrow streets. We asked around, got help from the government center, and visited many possibilities before learning that the clinic had closed. Never mind that they had answered given us an appointment for 11AM! Turns out that the operation still exists in San Cristobal (a mere 2 hours away from Ocosingo) but the clinic in Amatan, we were told, has closed. So perhaps the people were waiting to meet us in San Cristobal, but they sure weren't waiting to meet with us in Amatan!!!

We were told by people in Amatan that the clinic closed because it "didn't have enough community support." In our experience, "not enough community support" translates into the possibility that the American nonprofit got tired of footing the whole bill without some shared financial responsibility on this side of the border. This is a real concern as we work with the board of directors here and encourage them to recognize the need to raise partial operating funds to ensure that Las Manos de Cristo does not go the way of other clinics that have closed.

So, we will try to learn more from the San Cristobal part of that organization and look towards Chihuahua after all. The Mexico Medical Mission and Dr. Michael Berkeley stories are interesting ones, and their organization (affiliated with the Methodist church) seems very similar to ours. Pray with us that our next effort to learn from those who have gone before us produces more information, less frustration, and more hope for being able to sustain a long-term medical operation that is consistent with the hopes and dreams of those supporting it --- both here in Chiapas and in the US.