At Hospital Infantil, we hear dramatic stories about the needs of our young patients. Our hospital's social workers have daily encounters with indigent families from the shanty shacks and squatter communities in Tijuana, where inadequate infrastructure breeds illness.   Homeless families find their way to us from the far reaches of Mexico and California, seeking needed healthcare for their children.  Poverty has meant that they have waited for non-immediate surgeries, in addition to medical and dental services.  For them, food is a priority before medicine; we treat their children when the situation reaches the breaking point.

Can you imagine kids with more dire situations?  This week I learned the answer is yes.  Next month, a group of medically neglected children will visit our hospital for check ups and dental care. They live in Tijuana, about an hour from our office in Kearny Mesa.   They are the children of families who call the Tijuana dump their home.

Every day, these children help to scour rubbish in hopes of finding something that will help them survive. Their livelihood is searching for recyclables or anything else their family might be able to sell.  Sadly, these innocent young children find their sustenance in other people's trash.

Lic. Alejandra Guzman, a Pediatric Nutritionist and a very special angel at the Hospital Infantil, has been going to the Tijuana dump  to take the children food and goodies. She worries about their health and wellbeing.  As a nutritionist, she cringes at what mealtime means for them.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner among the trash?  Her simple gifts are real treasures for the kids, not the scavenged kind thrown away by someone else.  She tells stories of seeing the same children in the same dirtied clothes on each visit.

Alejandra & HIC volunteer Gina Romo

Alejandra and our hospital staff are organizing the children to receive dental exams and physical check ups.   Like all children who enter our doors, they won't be turned away for inability to pay.  Any needed follow up care will be provided for them as well.  We will make certain that health or dental issues won't be an additional cause of their suffering.

Our hats are off to Alejandra and her helpful volunteers, who look out for the children of the dump, and to our medical and dental teams, who selflessly donate their time to alleviate the pain of any child.  They cannot change the poverty, but with a collaborative effort, they can alleviate the physical suffering of many children.