Medical mission heads to Mexico

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — A group of Youngstown State University nursing faculty and students will be part of a medical mission to San Quintin, Mexico, in September.

The seven students and five nursing faculty will join a team of three local doctors, a nurse practitioner, a pharmacist and others in setting up a medical clinic in the poverty stricken area of that community.

Each team member is paying all of their expenses for travel, lodging and food. The cost is $800 per person.

The group is also holding fund-raising events and soliciting donations to buy medicine and medical supplies to be used in the one-week clinic.

A spaghetti dinner will be from 3 to 7 p.m. Saturday at good Hope Lutheran Church, 12030 Market St., North Lima. The cost is $7 for adults and $4 for children 12 and under. The church is helping to sponsor the trip.

A large garage sale has been scheduled for Aug. 23 at the church.

Anyone wishing to make a donation to the cause can send a check, made out to San Quintin Medical Mission II, to Dr. Pamela McHugh Schuster, Youngstown State University, Department of Nursing, 1 University Plaza, Youngstown, Ohio 44555.

She is leading the mission.

The group will leave Sept. 2 and fly to San Diego, where it will meet with Al and Barb Goldsworthy, the hosting medical missionaries working in Ensenada, Mexico. From there, it will be a four-hour van trip down the Baja peninsula to San Quintin.

The clinic and pharmacy will operate from Sept. 3 through Sept. 6, and the group will return home Sept. 7.

This is the second medical mission involving YSU’s nursing department in two years, Schuster said.

A mission to a different Mexican community last year saw 265 patients, primarily women, children and elderly men, she said.

The trip can be a life-changing experience, Schuster said, pointing out that participants are introduced to a community where people are very loving and close-knit, but dealing with poverty beyond belief.

The medical care offered by the clinic would otherwise not be available, she said.

The team will be working out of a trailer that includes two examination rooms, a small pharmacy and a bathroom.

Members will stay at a mission in Ensenada and a motel in San Quintin.

The clinic will be held in collaboration with a local church in San Quintin.