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A "blind date" between an Oshawa, Ont., physician who's been providing medical relief in Guyana for many years and volunteers from a newly-formed Jewish humanitarian relief organization resulted in a recent, highly successful medical mission to the second-poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
Four doctors, a pharmacist, several nurses and an administrator from Canada and the United States travelled through a remote region of southern Guyana for two weeks in late February and early March. The team tended to the medical needs of poor villagers and taught the locals basic health-care techniques. The trip was run with the assistance of the Guyanese government and the local Lions Club.
"I went into medical school because I wanted to be able to treat serious illnesses that can be cured, and this sort of trip allows me to do that," said Dr. Michael Silverman, who was medical coordinator for the trip and is an infectious disease and tropical medicine specialist at Oshawa General Hospital.
"You go in there, treat an eight-year-old girl with malaria, or a pregnant woman with typhoid, and cure them. It's very, very satisfying"
The trip's leader was Dr. Roy Rousell, a 70-year-old internist who runs the chronic care department of the Oshawa General Hospital and who, along with his wife Blaikey, have set up clinics for the poor in South America for 25 years.
The Rousells had already gone to Guyana once or twice a year for 11 years...