A pharmacy station at a recent medical missions trip to Monte Plata.
Some of you have probably been wondering about the project and the people of Monte Plata, Dominican Republic. Here is the latest on the project status. Before COVID-19, we had planned to return to Monte Plata in late January for what would have been our 20th annual project to that city. From a planning perspective, all projects since March last year have been canceled. MMI has been canceling projects about 60 to 90 days before the anticipated day of departure. The planning for a project begins shortly after one project ends, but these are different times. So, we pushed the date for our project back to mid-March in hopes of a turnaround with the pandemic.
We plan to do a smaller project (15-16 participants rather than the usual 35-40) to maintain some social distancing. We have also developed new protocols for surgery practice in the post-COVID world and plan to do a surgery-only project. The CDC then placed restrictions on international travel, making it almost impossible to get a team there. The case level in the DR spiked in the locality where we were to go, requiring them to need the beds they had allocated to us. So, this year's project was canceled and rescheduled for January 2022.
We were sad, but it is more tragic for the local Dominican staff. On a large project, they would occasionally employ up to 20 support staff for us. Those folks have gone without support from the projects for a full year now but are still passionate about the mission to their people. The country has had a curfew that restricts travel after 6 pm until 7 am. So, the staff has been giving out the PPE and medications in their warehouse to the hospitals and patients we serve. They are now sending small local teams back to the villages we used to serve to provide physical, mental, and spiritual health care to stand in the gap until the larger projects can resume. We hope to be able to begin to resume projects in late summer or fall of this year to the DR.
But in the meantime, there is something we can do to help. The DR needs funds to help buy medications and supplies and support their staff. Transporting or shipping supplies is very difficult with their new government, but they do have places where they can purchase those things. Would you consider donating to Live Greater Medical so that we can forward it to support the efforts in the Dominican Republic?