Ruffy Magbanua
FROM urban to rural, this volunteer medical team from Germany finds fulfillment in helping others. Dr. Gerhard Steinmaier, a good friend and neighbor, is one of them.
His group is called the German Doctors, a non-government organization that serves over 130,000 treatments each year from common colds to skin diseases and tuberculosis.
Based in Cagayan de Oro, Dr. Steinmaier is the medical director of German Doctors in Mindanao. He considers Cagayan de Oro his second home after marrying a Higaonon lady from Bukidnon.
German Doctors is an aid organization that sends physicians to medically under-served areas, mostly to the slums of third-world countries. So far, a great number of voluntary missions have been conducted in impoverished areas of the country since it launched its operations in 1985. The clinic is situated on Mortola Avenue at the back of Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan.
German Doctors also operates a hospital in Valencia City in Bukidnon, providing free medical services to indigents such as antenatal, obstetrics, and dental care in rural areas through its rolling clinics.
Working closely with the Dr. Jose P. Rizal School of Medicine of Xavier University, the German Doctors provides institutional support and training opportunities for XU medical students to become doctors for others as well.
It maintains three community health centers that could easily pass as mini-hospitals: one in Cagayan de Oro (32 beds), one in Valencia City in Bukidnon (30 beds), and a another one in Buda, serving the indigenous tribal people of Bukidnon, Davao and North Cotabato.
The Mindanao operation includes an inoculation campaign, wellness classes for mothers, and preventive medical and dental services to students of public schools.
In Cebu, the German Doctors worked in the City Jail and in the City and Provincial hospitals, and also in the Sapak farm for children, a project of Fr. Emmanuel Non S.J.
The Committee of German Doctors for Developing Countries started its medical mission in the country in the same year it was founded in 1983. A rolling clinic was established in Tondo under the auspices of the Canossian Sisters.
For their outstanding service rendered for the poorest of the poor, XU conferred to the German Doctors the Masterson Award for Public Service.
Founder Fr. Bernhard Ehlen, a German Jesuit priest, describes the German Doctors as private, independent, non-government, non-commercial, interdenominational humanitarian.
German Doctors is based in Bonn, Germany and operates worldwide. Doctors who volunteer their services are posted by the organization in its projects in India, Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, Kenya and in the Philippines.
Since its founding in 1983, German Doctors has carried out over 6,400 missions with more than 3,000 doctors worldwide.
Its mission is to send physicians and dentists for volunteer service of six to eight weeks in areas of critical need.
German Doctors started serving the infamous Howrah slum of Calcutta in India where its services were integrated into the health and social center situated in the middle of the slums.
The rest of its missions are spread in developing countries in need of basic health services.
Sad to note, however, this humanitarian volunteer group, after years of giving free medical services to the needy, is contemplating on stopping its Mindanao operations by 2019.
E-mail: ruffy44_ph2000@yahoo.com
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