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Nobody's Children by Maggie Kay
, 7/4/2009
Nobody’s Children
By Margaret Kay
Reprinted with permission from the American Podiatric Medical Association
What began as a recurrent request from his wife became, for Frank J. DiPalma, DPM, of Athens, GA, a passion to do good works. For 30 years, he said, his wife had been asking him to take her to Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina to the Shrine of the Queen of Peace, where some visitors claimed to see apparitions of the Virgin Mary. At last he agreed to make the religious pilgrimage, and what he found there changed him profoundly.
“I got the history of the area,” he said, “and I found that there were still a lot refugees around and people who needed help. Next thing I knew, I was working in the drug rehab. My wife actually volunteered my services to one of the priests there. I came to really appreciate the way those people are suffering there.”
While the war that raged in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the mid 1990s is a dim memory for many Americans—a bygone “cause du jour”—for the people of Medjugorje, it was anything but over. Actual hostilities had ceased, but the war had ravaged the area, leaving many homeless, disabled, and worse.
Local interpreters regaled Dr. DiPalma with horror stories about the war—about the annihilation of the local men and the raping and degradation of the women and children, many forced to remain in refugee camps for as much as a decade.
The unemployment rate in today’s Medjugorje is about 65 percent, Dr. DiPalma said. The only industry in the town is making cement. Needless to say, food, clothing, and medical supplies are in scarce supply.
Dr. DiPalma treated 10 men at the drug rehab center with only “make good” supplies such as duct tape and cardboard to make arch supports and heel lifts.
“When I got back, I got online and started doing some research,” he said, “and I got connected with a fellow in Pennsylvania who goes there every year, Walter Miller of His Work in Progress (HWIP).” This non-profit organization in Philadelphia organizes medical missions and gathers supplies for the devastated area.
Like most podiatric physicians who serve on medical missions overseas or underserved areas in the United States, Dr. DiPalma ended up performing basic medical care far different his normal scope of practice at home. He worked on backs and hands, dispensed advice about exercise, and removed foreign bodies from legs. “At first I thought I would go there and hook up with the surgeons,” he said, but he soon discovered that the local surgeons, who feared losing their jobs after the retreat of communist rule from the area, perceived him and others like him as a threat.
While democracy has come to Bosnia-Herzegovina via a parliamentary republic, Dr. DiPalma said that many of the underprivileged in the area actually want communism to return because of the certainty of jobs and availability of healthcare, however uncertain the quality.
“They’re just trying to recover,” he said. “They have nothing.”
Miller, who has made repeated trips to the area since 1998, agrees. He noted an almost total lack of foot care in an area where shoes are also scarce and the terrain rugged and treacherous. “The streets in the camps are mostly cinder and not paved,” he said, “and when they walk, they’re walking through uneven, rocky fields.” Foot fungus is rampant, and the pressure of the angle from coming down the mountain can seriously bruise the feet, even with sturdy shoes to protect them.
In response, Miller has organized regular trips to Bosnia-Herzegovina to bring much-needed shoes, bicycles, and medical care to the area. Volunteers for HWIP collect gently used bikes, refurbish them, and send them to Bosnia to provide some of the people living in the refugee camps an alternative to having to walk everywhere and further damage their feet. The program, “Pedals Around the World,” offers the additional advantage of a way for people to get to work in a place where jobs are scarce.
“We found three refugee camps where people lived in small, one-room tin huts (about the size of a one-car garage) without bathrooms and with leaky roofs,” said Miller. “This was an upgrade from the train cars they lived in—rats everywhere. Someone spray painted a sign on the side of the train car that read ‘Nobody's Children.’ What a commentary. So I can tell you they are our children now!”
Miller describes the overwhelmingly positive reaction of the recipients of the bicycles and shoes, particularly one little girl who “lit up like a Christmas tree” at the sight of a pair of donated white patent leather girls’ dress shoes that fit her perfectly.
Miller is constantly looking for medical professionals—particularly specialists—to accompany his group on their missions. The medical professionals who make these trips can count on working far beyond their specialties. While the diabetes rate in Bosnia-Herzegovina is quite high, doctors who accompany HWIP can expect to do work far beyond their own specialties, including prevention awareness for such diseases as breast cancer and melanoma. Additionally, Miller is hoping to include medical students on future trips and is working with medical schools and student groups to bring this about.
When it comes to helping with the missions, “Cash is king,” said Miller. But they’re always looking for volunteers and medical supplies, including basic supplies such as pain cream, arthritis creams, gloves, splints, ACE bandages of all kinds and all sizes, wound dressings, diabetic foot management (cleaning products, stockings, educational materials, etc.). Donors are discouraged from mailing supplies directly to the area. Those who are interested in donating cash or medical supplies—or those who are interested in giving their time to collect bicycles, shoes, or even to travel to the area for mission work—should contact Miller at Walter.Miller@att.net or Dr. DiPalma at fivetoes1946@aol.com.
HWIP also works in Peru, Haiti, and Croatia, and they delivered $1.5 million dollars worth of relief supplies to the area struck by Hurricane Katrina. Dr. DiPalma plans to return to the Medjugorje area next May when HWIP will take another group of volunteers, and he’s hoping to bring some podiatric colleagues along with him.
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