For
nearly two years, Jaquelin, a 17-year-old girl who lives with her family deep
in the Chapare jungle of Bolivia, suffered from stomach pains. Not just an ordinary stomach ache, but pain
and swelling so severe that she eventually had to stop going to school.
Jaquelin
became increasingly emaciated as her abdomen swelled bigger and bigger, causing
the pains in her belly to get worse. To
pass the day, she worked in her family’s fields planting and harvesting bananas
and yucca, but even this became unbearable.
Finally, her family brought Jaquelin to the nearest hospital, two hours
away. There she was diagnosed with a
massive tumor that would require expensive surgery—something her parents could
not afford as farmers living on a meager income.
Determined
to find help for their suffering daughter, they went to the public hospital in far-off
Cochabamba. Here at Hospital Viedma,
Jaquelin and her family learned that doctors from the United States would soon
be arriving with medicines from AmeriCares that would enable them to perform
surgeries for people in dire need of help.
Through its Medical Outreach Program,
AmeriCares donates medicines and medical supplies to U.S.-based health
care professionals providing volunteer medical care to people in desperate need
in over 70 countries around the world. Solidarity
Bridge, a nonprofit organization located in Chicago, is one partner that relies
on donated products from
AmeriCares to carry out its medical mission trips to Bolivia.
Jaquelin
soon received the critical surgery she needed from the volunteer doctors at
Solidarity Bridge who removed a 25-pound tumor that turned out to be benign.
“Jaquelin
is now walking around, smiling happily and eating ravenously for the first time
in a long, long time. She is full of
life! Her case, and the many others we
see, would not be possible without the support from AmeriCares,” said Ann
Rhomberg, Solidarity Bridge mission coordinator.
In 2010, the Medical
Outreach Program provided nearly $62 million worth of critical medicines and
supplies to 1,061 teams working overseas or providing charitable orthopedic
surgeries in the U.S.
