"Healing Peru" - Lajes doctor, Airmen trek to Peru to aid indigenous people

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Angelique N. Smythe
  • 65th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
LAJES FIELD, Azores --  Many people only dream of opportunities to participate in humanitarian projects assisting indigenous people in faraway lands.

On May 31, 15 Airmen and civilian medical professionals will live out that dream by traveling to the rural highlands of the Andes Mountains in Peru to participate in a medical volunteer humanitarian project called Healing Peru.

Led by Dr. (Maj.) Nicholas Seeliger, 65th Medical Operations Squadron Family Medicine physician, the team will provide free medical services, preventative health care, health education and economic assistance to the indigenous women of the Andahuaylillas village in support of the Q'ewar Project, a social work initiative program.

"The Q'ewar Project focuses on helping women of these communities who are usually coming from really difficult social situations; many of them are either widowed, separated or victims of domestic violence," said Seeliger. "This project brings these women in, teaches them a trade, such as how to make different types of quilts, blankets and dolls, and that's how they establish themselves."

Seeliger and his wife, Kristy, formed the Healing Peru nonprofit organization in 2007 while stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. This is the fifth year he will lead yet another team to provide medical assistance and strengthen relationships within the Andahuaylillas village.

The volunteers from across the Air Force have no formal training related to working in humanitarian environments which have no medical resources. Healing Peru provides an opportunity for Air Force medics to learn how to work in austere or remote environments with limited resources. Care is usually provided to an average of 2,000 people within their short two-week visit.

"We try to help them the best we can, and then we try to give them a diagnosis and treatment," said Seeliger. "The types of illnesses these people have are things most of us take for granted, such as simple lacerations, skin infections, urinary tract infections, arthritis and diseases of labor. These are hardworking farmers; their bodies hurt, so most of what we do is provide pain relief. We provide pain relief medicines, nutritional supplements, prenatals and those kinds of things."

Staff Sgt. Tim Begley, who first participated in Healing Peru in April 2012, will share this rare experience with his wife of almost four years, Staff Sgt. Lora Begley. Both Begleys are medical technicians with the 65th MDOS.

"Tim came with us last year and was an integral part of the whole project," said Seeliger. "He worked really hard, and I think he had a good experience. His wife was unable to go last year; I believe she was deployed shortly after. It was something important enough to her that when she got back, they both decided to go this year. They're paying out of pocket for this (permissive temporary duty assignment). It's not cheap to fly from here to South America, so this says a lot at how motivated they are to be a part of the project."

Although both Tim and Lora have the same job in the Air Force, they have never had the opportunity to actually work together. At Lajes, Lora is in charge of education and training for the 65th Medical Group, and Tim works in ambulance services.

"The fact that we'll both be able to go together is awesome," said Tim. "Last year, I think we saw close to a thousand people in just a few days. I was just overwhelmed at how great it went, how much we were able to do and how many people we saw. It was incredible.

"We triaged all the patients, gathered all their information, took their vital signs and put together a story of what they were there for so the doctor could treat them, prescribe and hand out meds. We also did a lot of dental care, a lot of extractions. They don't grow up with dental care, so their teeth get worn down over time."

Some of the villagers even traveled for days just to see the visiting doctors.

"We had trouble just walking around on flat ground and with the elevation," said Tim. "Everything was so steep, yet we had one woman who walked for three days from a mountain village, even further removed from where we were, just to come see the doctors.

"I'm glad I was able to use my military training to go out and do this humanitarian mission. Being in the medical field, I always thought it would be really nice to go to these countries and help people in this capacity. It's in a very remote area of the world, so we're gaining an additional experience that we don't normally see with a healthy active duty population."

Lora said she's very excited for this opportunity.

"We've always talked about how much I would love to do humanitarian missions in Africa or South America for extended periods of time whenever we get out of the military or retire," said Lora. "It's definitely a goal, a dream."

At age 16, Lora's first opportunity to serve in this capacity came when her church visited Vietnam.

"We visited various hospitals to educate people about AIDS," she said. "We also visited orphanages and minority villages in the mountains."

Tim and Lora will now both share their second humanitarian experience together in Peru.

"Last year was the first one I'd been able to volunteer for, so it'll be the same thing twice, but completely different in that we'll have a lot of different patients," Tim said.

Most natives of the Andahuaylilla village, an isolated community, speak the ancient language of Quechua, and very few speak Spanish in this Spanish-speaking country. Therefore, translators are usually heavily relied upon for a three-way translation of English, Spanish and Quechua.

Although Tim took three years of Spanish courses throughout high school, he said it only gave him a small foundation. He learned much of his Spanish by interacting with people from Central and South America while working in the construction trade for nearly five years before joining the Air Force.

"Of course, they have a completely different dialect than everywhere else, but once you're immersed in it for a couple days, it comes right back," he said.

For the first time this year, an obstetrician and physical therapist will go with the team.

"There's an OBGYN coming from California; she's prior Air Force and is now the Assistant Program Director of the OBGYN Residency Program at University of California, Davis," Seeliger said. "We hope to have her work with some of the midwives who work in a village near where we're going to be. This is the first time a physical therapist is coming as well, so she's going to do a lot of her muscular skeletal treatment. This community is a hard laboring community with farmers and laborers, so they have lots of aches and pain."

This year's Healing Peru volunteers are from Lajes Field, Azores; Eglin AFB, Fla.; Hurlburt Field, Fla.; Ramstein AB, Germany; Fort Sam Houston, Texas; and Oakland, Calif.