Florida Catholic | Medical Teams Help Poor And Sick In Bolivia

Medical teams help the poor and sick in Bolivia

BENNET BOLTON | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Published: 03.21.08

PALM BEACH GARDENS | Without fuss or fanfare, a quiet group of medical specialists is healing the poor and saving lives in impoverished Bolivia.

These surgeons, anesthetists, dentists, other specialists, nurses and nonmedical volunteers go by the unusual name Con El — Spanish for “with him.” Those words come after the consecration at Mass when the priest says, “Through him, and with him and in him.”

“I began Con El in 1988 with Bishop Thomas Daly, the first bishop of the then-new Diocese of Palm Beach,” Dorothy Martin, the founder, told the Florida Catholic.

The group’s 20th annual dinner/fundraiser was held March 8 at the Embassy Suites in Palm Beach Gardens. Bishop Gerald M. Barbarito attended and addressed the gathering.

Martin expanded on why Con El is remarkable. “We are diocesewide, yet we are nondenominational. We have Jewish, Protestant and even atheist participants,” she said. “The teams and how many doctors on each are: five surgeons, five dentists five women’s health, two rehabilitation and 12 volunteer youths.

“We don’t have a membership, as such, and not a lot of meetings,” said Martin. “We have no business office — in other words, no overhead.

“Medical people are great givers,” she continued. “In our case, each doctor or dentist must get up his or her own money to pay for the trip plus meals and lodging. Some of these doctors and nurses are affluent, some are not. Everyone has to work hard to earn enough so that the entire team can go.”

Martin said she approached Bishop Daly with the Con El idea because she knew he had studied Spanish in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Together they chose the name Con El.

The plan was to concentrate efforts in just one diocese in Bolivia, and Cochabamba, high in the Andes, became their choice. At the beginning, Martin went down to Bolivia first to see what other organizations do so that Con El could avoid beginners’ mistakes.

She discovered that Bolivia is one of the poorest and least developed nations in South America. Its population of almost 9 million is 78 percent Catholic, and almost two-thirds of the Bolivian people live in poverty.

“The whole country is poor,” she said. “There is nothing left over — no paper or other debris out in the streets. These people don’t even have garbage.”

One of the 10 Con El board members is Sister Jude Ruggeri, director of the youth and young adult ministry in the diocese of Palm Beach.

“It is difficult sending down youth teams as often as we would like, because young people are so involved in their own schooling,” she told the Florida Catholic.

“The various medical teams go down to Bolivia usually in May and October,” Sister Ruggeri continued. “When to go depends a lot on the political climate at the time. It also depends on when the doctors are free to travel.

“They really do work hard,” she said of the volunteers. “Sometimes a doctor will see a hundred or more patients. A lot of the medical work involves facial maxillary surgery.”

Martin expressed why the group members volunteer. “We don’t do this to make ourselves feel good. These are good people doing good work, but they don’t blow their own horn. They are all volunteers.

“Money itself has no meaning for us. It is the spirit that counts, and the talent that God gave each of us,” she said.

Return to Diocese of Palm Beach Front Page

Medical teams help the poor and sick in Bolivia

Other Stories