Advocates in Maine seek funding for burn room at Nicaraguan hospital

BANGOR – As fund-raising projects go, it’s not that big. The sum of $8,972 will buy construction materials for a burn room at Hospital Nuevo Amanecer Enfermera Nancy Bach – New Hospital Sunrise Nurse Nancy Bach, in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.

The United Nations put up $500,000 to build the hospital a decade ago, but over 26 years it is Maine hospitals and businesses, a church agency, the Air National Guard and Air Force, doctors and nurses and builders and other individuals who have provided hospital supplies and equipment, transport and – more importantly – the many hands that have brought health care to the poor of one Central American country.

The vehicle for those efforts has been Partners in Health, a humanitarian organization now based in Dover-Foxcroft.

Ten years ago, an empty Viner Shoe building on the Penobscot River, before its current entity as the Sea Dog, sat full of pallets holding supplies for the new hospital, gathered through PIH.

There were beds from Eastern Maine Medical Center, a ventilator and autoclave from St. Joseph Hospital, washers and dryers from Gold Star Cleaners, transformers from Bangor Hydro-Electric Co., and countless items from the old Taylor Hospital, donated by the new The Acadia Hospital.

Major advocates for the new hospital were PIH volunteers Dr. Robert Bach and his wife, Nancy, a nurse, both of whom made many trips to Nicaragua. Just months after the hospital was built, “Miss Nancy,” as she was known by the people in Puerto Cabezas, died of cancer.

The numerous volunteers who have paid their own way to Nicaragua, donating their time in the years since, have included anesthetists, business administrators, engineers, medical technologists, university faculty, physicians, many nurses and still, Dr. Bach. His wife, Gail, also volunteers there. Medical shipments for the hospital and rural clinics continue to be sent twice a year.

Once back in Maine from her recent trip, Dr. Joan McCracken began sending letters to relatives and friends, asking if they could help raise the funds for the burn room in the regional hospital PIH helped build.

Because sterile environments do not exist on the wards there, she wrote, there is a great need for a separate room that could accommodate two patients at a time. It would have a private bathroom and a hydrotherapy tub.

Personnel in charge of the room would be trained in coordination with the Natural Medicine Training Project at the Nancy Bach Hospital.

“The sooner we raise the money,” MacCracken wrote, “the sooner the patients with burns will be utilizing this room.”

Contributions for the burn room in Puerto Cabezas may be made out to Partners in Health, marked “For Burn Unit,” and mailed to PIH in care of 26 University Place, Orono 04473.