Gabriel Gámez, Field Report, Fall 2025

For many years, I have had the good fortune of working alongside health promoters and midwives from diverse communities and cultural backgrounds. I have always been impressed by how much can be done for the community with just a little attention, love, and empathy. Many times, as a team, we have discussed the reach of our program and how it can support people in need of comprehensive, dignified care. Yet every so often, a small moment of clarity appears—something that pulls us out of routine and helps us see the details we sometimes overlook.

I live in a small community of 30 families. Although it’s relatively close to one of the more urban areas of Petén, the community still faces many challenges: limited services, poor access to basic needs, and few opportunities for economic growth. Most families here have very few financial resources and even fewer job prospects.

From the outside, one might assume that being near a health post or hospital would ensure everyone has access to decent care. But many of my neighbors approach the public health system with caution and mistrust—after years of hidden costs, inconsistent care, and poor-quality services. This is even more pronounced in elderly patients.

Two years ago, my neighbors contacted me because the mother, Doña Sofía, was very ill. The team and I visited her and found a woman in her late seventies experiencing a crisis with her glucose levels. She had been taken to various clinics—public and private—but nothing had improved. The last doctor she saw told the family they should prepare for her imminent passing. She had been prescribed a long list of medications: antihypertensives, glucose regulators, antibiotics, hormones, vitamins, and sedatives.

At that point, she was not speaking. She was disoriented, heavily sedated, and unable to care for herself.

In consultation with the team and advisors, most of her medications were discontinued. It was explained to the family that we could try improving her health by stabilizing her glucose levels and avoiding unnecessary treatments. 

With support from the practitioners, we shared information and trained the family on how to care for someone with diabetes. She needed insulin, and now—two years later—she remains stable under our program’s monitoring. She still requires high doses of NPH insulin, but she is alert, engaged, and able to care for herself as much as possible at her age.

As a result, other people have come to our house seeking support in moments of need. Two months ago, we were asked to check on Don José, age 87, who was very ill. Julia, the other field volunteer, examined him and found a case of prostatitis with signs of sepsis and an inability to urinate, as well as advanced aspiration pneumonia. Thankfully, he responded well to antibiotics, and treatment for his prostate condition has allowed him to recover quickly. Once again, a doctor had told the family not to expect him to survive.

In recent months, we have had visits from patients seeking support for diabetes, pneumonia, skin fungus, and more. They are my neighbors—people who could have gone to the hospital or health center, but who do not trust a system that has treated them with indifference for so long. Or they simply do not have the resources to pay for very expensive treatments prescribed without consideration for their socioeconomic conditions.

I pause to think about how a community health program in Las Cruces manages to reach, quietly and sometimes unexpectedly, a small town 75 km away. This time, I am glad to have been part of that chain of people who manage to cover so much ground. In the same way, I see patients arriving in search of care who live many hours and many kilometers away. They find high-quality care—but equally important, care delivered with warmth. I think of all the people who form this chain as it grows and expands more and more… and we build community.