ContinUing CArE in NIcARAGuA

MSUM nursing students provide care to children with handicaps

very February, for the past 10 years, Jane Bergland travels with her nursing students by car, airplane, and bus to reach their destination of Jalapa, Nicaragua, to help children with handicaps. Each year she returns knowing Minnesota State University Moorhead was integral to caring for these children.

In 2002, MSUM nursing professor Bergland partnered with close friend and pediatrician Dr. Teri of Hennepin County to go on medical trips with nursing students and pediatric residents. Their focus is not only to provide care outside of westernized medicine, but also to give students a good experience to work as a team, be flexible, and serve an underserved population.

Medical Eye Dental International Care Organization (MEDICO) leads the trips, and Healthcare Equipment

Recycling Organization (HERO) of Fargo provides some of the medical supplies.

“We don’t go down there thinking we’re going to save the world. That’s not what this is about,” Bergland said. “It’s really doing the best we can with the resources we have.”

Jalapa has limited running water, no garbage pick up or sewer system. The city is in a mountainous region 10 miles from the Honduran border.

“Our world is small and I think the students need to experience what it’s like in a developing country,” Bergland said. “It’s important for them to come back and be better nurses by opening their eyes and minds to different cultures, different ways of thinking, and different ways of providing care.”

In Jalapa, the nursing students set up tables outside to check heights, weights, and head circumferences and to evaluate the patients’ situations. The patients then see the pediatrician. “The patients bring their medication slips to us. We get them ready and have an interpreter help us explain the medications. It’s a well run system,” Bergland said.

The medical trip changed nursing student Heather Erickson’s life. “I dropped a pill on the ground. In the U.S. you’d dispose of it, but in Jalapa that pill could help someone for another day,” Erickson said. “Now I’m more resourceful.”

Berland said most rewarding part of the medical trip is watching the students grow and the friendships and collaborations made between Minnesota and Nicaragua to improve health outcomes for the children. “The local interpreters, doctors, and people who work at the hospital had no idea there were so many children with handicaps until we started serving them,” Bergland said.

“Mothers will carry their handicapped child miles to come and see us if they don’t have a wheelchair, money for a cab or bus,” Bergland said. “They will walk because we provide seizure medication, which is a huge incentive for them to see the medical team. They will wait, and wait, and wait if the line is long.”

Bergland’s team sees many of the same patients every year, and she emphasizes that it’s not emergency care but continuity of care. “It’s baby steps, but every year we see improvement and mothers understanding why their children have handicaps,” Bergland said. “Students aren’t fixing broken bones and going into surgery. They’re supporting these women, telling them they’re doing a wonderful job. That’s an important part of the nursing intervention.”

Bergland has taken 54 nursing students to Nicaragua in the past 10 years. “I just can’t wait to go back,” Bergland said. [AWM]

To learn more or to provide support for the MSUM medical trip to Nicaragua, visit www.medico.org