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For the next four weeks I will be providing chiropractic care at the Hospital de Rehabilitation Aldo Chavarria, in conjunction with other medical and physiotherapy services they provide. Which range from usual pain syndromes, to stroke injury and neurological deficit , spinal injuries and amputations.
I am staying with The Hospital Director Angelica and her family; Marcos her orthopaedic surgeon husband, their ten year old daughter Isabella, Marcos’s mother Gloria and his uncle. It’s a normal sort of house without all the mod cons you would associate with middle class families in UK. It is obvious how close and loving the family are. They have made me feel at home from day one, I get up at 6.30am have breakfast with the family. I drive to work with Angelica while Marcos works at another hospital. I start at 8 and finish around 15.00. I had intended working every day but seeing so many people doing full spine manual adjustments. I decided to rest my arm on Wednesday and weekends.
It was Marcos’s birthday (35) a few days after I arrived and they invited me to join them for a birthday dinner in a Spanish restaurant with their friends a normal occurrence for most people in developed countries.
I chose to focus on the similarities with my life in UK, while the political opposition (based in US) focuses on the things that are different but not necessarily relevant to them. If you are poor living in another developing country where the inequality is massive compared to Nicaragua, you would be amazed at the free public services Nicaraguans have. Even in the UK there are reports of people having to do their own dentistry, when the pain became unbearable and no dentist to see them. In UK students have to pay £10,000 a year to go to university. If Cuba and Nicaragua can provide these services for free why can’t rich country like UK and US?
Chiropractors who run the UK profession, would tell you I hate Medical Doctors. I hate chiropractors who were not clever enough to get into medical school and see chiropractic as a back door way of becoming a doctor. Having been educated at a private boarding school, I have lots of friends who are medical doctors and love discussing varying approaches to health care. In fact the Nicaraguan and Cuba approach is probably closer to mine than much of the medical profession in the UK where, the Pharmaceutical industry has far too much influence on the “ business” of health, where allowing chronic conditions develop from their acute stage is good for business, if you think about it.
We know the food and drink industry produce questionable products to make a profit but few question the motives of the pharmaceutical industry. Are they really there to make people healthy and cure all illness’s? But wouldn’t a “health” approach loose them business and against the very principle shareholders invest in a company. If we have learned nothing from the opioid crisis and the marketing of OxyContin, it is that the pharmaceutical industry is no different from any industry seeking profit for shareholders. Fortunately it’s doctors and patients deciding policy in Nicaragua. But no need to be obsessive, Marcos aware of the great times I had in Cuba ordered me an excellent Mohito made with only genuine Cuban rum “Havana Club”
While we don’t talk much about politics, knowing your history is important for a country to develop. Marcos and Angelica took me to Plaza de Revolution where life in Nicaragua began to change for the better on 19th of July 1979, where Managua and Nicaragua began to grow again after the earthquake that flattened the place in 1972 and all the foreign aid was pocketed by the Somoza dictatorship. I got emotional standing in the square thinking how my mother had stood here in 1988, with my two sisters to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the revolution and how much has improved since, (despite the period of stagnation when MacDonalds came to Nicaragua from 1990 to 2006).
How inspiring to stand in the main square of Nicaragua, where Sandinista revolutionary leaders addressed the people from the balcony of “Catedral de Santiago” on July 19th 1979. And how ironic then that US and EU governments, describe the Sandinista government as an “oppressive regime”, while the balcony of the Old Cathedral now carries a banner with a message to those countries who have a history of starting wars; “Peace is our Victory”. Plaza de Revolution also has memorial’s to men and women who gave their life to change Nicaragua for the better and then you can visualise the future as you walk down the adjoining street and see the lights and colours of “Arboles de la Vida” (the trees of life” which represent the future and hope for Nicaragua
