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Background Facts and Related Links
Learn more about the political and economic challenges facing Ecuador and efforts to provide healthcare to its poorest citizens.  Mike Seely is a San Francisco-based filmmaker working as a freelance cinematographer and associate producer at Stanford's Program in Bioethics and Film. His film Radio Grito, about a Spanish language radio show for migrant farm workers in California, won Best Short Documentary at the 2006 Cinequest FIlm Festival. Seely completed his MA in documentary film production at Stanford University in 2005.
"The decisions that will change our country will not come from above with political decisions. They will come from below -- working with the people." -- Dr. Edgar Rodas. That's not a quote you would expect to hear from a government official, but Dr. Rodas happens to be a former minister of health for Ecuador. This from-the-ground-up philosophy is what motivated him to start an innovative rural health program. Frustrated by Ecuador's lack of health resources for poor people, Rodas created the Cinterandes Foundation in 1995 with a volunteer group of surgeons who shared his ideals. As a medical student in the early 1960s, he was inspired by the work of Project HOPE (Health Opportunities for People Everywhere). As part of this initiative, an American-run hospital boat regularly visited Ecuador's Pacific coast to provide surgeries and medical care for poor people. He vowed to someday emulate this approach and help his own country to better provide medical care. Decades later, equipped with a mobile hospital truck bought with private donations and help from the Ecuadorian government, he and his small but dedicated team set out to change the landscape of rural health in Ecuador. Last year, I met with Rodas at a conference in San Francisco. He invited me back to his country to see for myself the challenges Ecuadorian doctors face in providing health services to those in underserved and hard-to-reach rural areas, who make up more than a third of the population. From cities perched high in the Andes to fishing villages on the coast and on into the Amazon jungle, I traveled with members of his team as they performed surgeries inside a medically equipped truck and boat. I soon learned that the surgical care the doctors provide is only a small part of what the organization offers. Rodas expanded his mobile-surgery program and began recruiting primary-care doctors to cover specific remote geographic areas, those rarely touched by modern medicine. After days of slogging up hills through misty cloud forests with Pablo Armijos, one of the program's doctors, I saw firsthand the sheer remoteness of the Andean villages, where the only way to get around is by foot or mule. Armijos carries just a small backpack filled with medicine and syringes. "Sometimes it's not possible to go by the book in practicing medicine here," he says. "We have to improvise and try to do what we can with what we have." I also spent time with Dr. Miriann Mora as she made her rounds with a traditional healer, Eulalia Maria, high up in the Ranas indigenous zone. The two women worked fluidly together, with Maria pointing out medicinal plants as they passed along the mountain trails. I hiked from house to house with these two energetic young doctors, who grew up a few hours by car from each other, but whose medical practices are worlds apart. For Rodas and his team, health is about more than just medical care and relates to all aspects of life. As one patient said after successful gallstone surgery, "Everything is worse when you're not healthy. There's no way to work, no way to earn anything at all." In 12 years, Cinterandes has carried out about 5,200 operations and now provides medical care for more than 50,000 people across Ecuador. The medical services are free, supported mostly by private funding from the United States and Europe. As for the future, Rodas plans to expand his project with the help of his son, a surgeon living in Florida, who will return to Ecuador in a few years to continue his father's work. -- Mike Seely | ||||||||||||||||||
Joel Savitch - Fort Lauderdale, Florida James Montesinos - Rochester, NY Peter - New York, NY Michel Aboutanos - Richmond, Virginia Sara Carrera - San Francisco, California claudia hodari hodari - puerto villamil, ecuador Travis McBride - Allen, Texas Patrick - Allen, TX Quito, Ecuador Pat Escandon - New Haven, Ct. Mike Garcia - Chicago, IL Lupi Nicholls-Reyes - Miami, FL Chukwumuanya Igboekwu - Kontagora, Niger State, Nigeria angeles, philipines Sarah - Boston, MA george contreras - new york, ny Mercedes Cass - Matthews, N.C.
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