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Jens Haerter - PA-C
Click on email address to send a message:
jens@healtheclinic.org
Being born, and having lived much of my life, in a tiny
speck of a town in the Dakotas, I’ve always had a tendency
to look outward. On the wide-open prairie, in a place where people
are vastly outnumbered by gophers, it has always seemed natural
to look toward the seemingly endless horizon.
That looking has taken me to a lot of places. Places with people
that have made big impressions on me. Among them was a rotation
spent training at the city hospital in Bangkok, Thailand. The
other, a seven month stint spent volunteering at various hospitals
and clinics, in and around Quito, Ecuador. Despite big differences
between these two cultures and countries, it was hard not to be
struck by the many similarities in what worked, and didn’t
work in delivering basic healthcare to the people that needed
it most.
I was surprised to find that both countries are filled with abandoned
foreign healthcare projects. These ventures had been started by
foreign medical professionals, and other well-meaning people,
who had brought with them their own version of the “wheel
of healthcare” to share with the locals. But, in time, as
interest from abroad waned, these clinics and other endeavors
faded, or disappeared. Leaving the local people baffled, sometimes
embittered.
The basic healthcare programs that I have witnessed working,
that have a history, and a future, are almost universally locally
grown and managed. Run by local professionals and lay practitioners,
who understand local customs, illnesses and care, these community-based
projects have the trust and acceptance of the people they serve.
Their communities rely on them to diagnose, treat, and prevent,
a wide variety of basic ailments—without the need for expensive
testing or treatment. Since these clinics, or other programs are
by, and of, the local people, everyone feels like they have a
stake in them. |
