Sheila McShane directs Clinica Maxeña, part of the Guatemala Mission of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena, Montana. McShane arrived in Guatemala 1966, one of two young American RNs who constituted the only trained medical staff at the new mission. The presence of electricity, a rarity in the region, determined the clinic's location.
"When we first arrived, we were completely overwhelmed by the poverty. The people were barefoot, obviously very sick - we had a lot of tuberculosis, malnutrition, and childhood diseases like measles, whooping cough, pneumonia. People were dying very young. There was no medical assistance in the area."
Since the clinic's founding in 1964, the staff has increased from two to fifty. Even though the 2012 ratio of physicians to general population in Guatemala was just 9.3 per 10,000, health in the region has improved, thanks to more government health clinics as well as an affiliated Spanish medical project, Medica Mundi.
(Broadcast: "Home Ground Radio," 6/7/15. Listen on the web, weekly on the radio at Sundays at 11:10 a.m., or via podcast.)