October 10, 2008, Festival of Booths begins soon, By Carole J. Stone, Maternity hospital a local blessing, By Mallory Betz, US Embassy goes pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, By Ambassador Antonio O. Garza, Starbucks holds national coffee tasting

Festival of Booths begins soon
By Carole J. Stone
October 10, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Shalom San Miguel
Sukkot holiday
Tue, Oct 14, 9:30am
Yizkor memorial service
Tue, Oct 21, 9:30am
Hotel Quinta Loreto
TV Salon, Loreto 15

If you lived in an urban area, you might notice that at this time of year some of your neighbors are erecting little sheds in their yards. Here in San Miguel, what few there may be are hidden, as is almost everything else, behind walls or on rooftops. These peculiar little houses may be framed with wood, the walls might be canvas, with the roof merely wooden slats covered loosely with bamboo, cane, palm fronds or branches. You might wonder what the purpose could be of such insubstantial structures.

After the holiday of Yom Kippur, observant Jews begin to erect sukkot, or “booths,” for the festival of the same name. Sukkot, one of the Three Festivals (the others are Passover and Shavuot) begins merely four days after the awesome Yom Kippur, and commemorates our 40-year journey through the desert with Moses. There, the Jews had only temporary structures in which to live. We use these structures to remember that time and to appreciate our comfort and security now. We also remember that all of life is transient and impermanent.

A sukkah must adhere to certain requirements: it must be temporary, it must have three walls closed and one with an opening or doorway and it must have a roof through which one can see the stars. Although some people actually live in their sukkot during this holiday, weather permitting, most observant Jews take at least one meal, and preferably all meals there.

Another Sukkot observance involves the taking of the Four Species: a citron, called an etrog; a palm frond, or lulav; three myrtle twigs and two willow twigs. These Four Species bring to mind the four different personality types that comprise the Community of Israel, K’lal Yisrael, whose intrinsic unity we emphasize on Sukkot. During religious services, these items are held together and waved to the six directions: ahead, to the right, behind, to the left, up and down.

Sukkot lasts one week. Immediately following is the holiday of Simchat Torah (which means “rejoicing in the Torah”), in which we celebrate the giving to Moses and the Jewish people on Mt. Sinai of our bible, our Torah—known to non-Jews as the old Testament. The annual Torah-reading cycle ends on this day. We have reached the end of the Torah and it’s time to rewind the scrolls and begin again. On this festive day, we celebrate by singing and dancing around the synagogue while carrying Torahs on our shoulders. Then it’s time to take the sukkah down again for another year.

This year, Shalom San Miguel celebrates the holiday of Sukkot with religious services on October 14. We will hold a Yizkor (memorial) service on October 21, and our Kiddush following each service in our sukkah. Please join us there.

A light mist falls from the blanket of gray clouds that covers Santa Julia as I descend the hill to San Rafael. The usual chaos of calle Ignacio Allende is nonexistent on this dark Monday afternoon. All is quiet.

I enter the CASA Hospital and find Nancy, my favorite professional midwife, hurriedly gulping down a bowl of soup. “I have a woman in labor,” she tells me with her mischievous smile. I smile too because I know that this afternoon I will witness a miracle.

Several hours pass before I see a nurse exit the room with a beautiful baby boy wrapped in a blanket in her arms. “Todo bien?” I ask the gynecologist as he passes. “Si, todo bien,” he tells me with a confident smile.

This mother is just one of the thousands of women who have given birth at Hospital de CASA since its inception in 1994. In 2007 alone, 345 women had their babies at CASA. Staffed with a team of professional midwives, doctors, pediatricians, a dentist, a podiatrist, a chiropractor and a full service laboratory, CASA is an integrated family health clinic and hospital that provides high quality services to the community for exceptionally low prices.

A Mexican woman from a rural community gave birth at the hospital a few weeks ago. She wrote on her patient survey, “I’m grateful in a thousand ways for the attention that they gave us. In very few hospitals do you encounter that kind of treatment.” She is not alone in her sentiment. In 2007/2008 to date, 94 percent of 500 patients who filled out questionnaires about their experience at CASA said that the quality was excellent and that they would recommend the services.

The hospital’s goal is to nurture genuine relationships with its patients and to provide access to medical services to people who could not otherwise afford healthcare. “There is something special about a woman attending to another woman,” said Grisel, one of the hospital’s professional midwives. “A unique chemistry and trust develops in the relationship.”

CASA Hospital operates on a sliding fee scale to ensure that money is not a barrier to treatment. The idea is that healthcare is not a privilege, but a basic human right. Patients in need get quality medical care that is affordable to them.

In 2007 alone, physician and midwife teams at the CASA Clinic gave 13,532 outpatient consultations.

The hospital’s midwives are trained at CASA’s professional midwifery school; the only accredited program of its kind in Mexico. A recent study by the University of California at San Francisco showed that on average CASA’s midwives scored twice as high as medical school graduates from UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) on a comprehensive women’s health exam.

The competency of the midwives is reflected in CASA’s extremely low rates of caesarian births and babies with low birth weight. In 2007, CASA’s low birth weight rate was 4.6 percent compared to Mexico’s national rate of 10.9 percent. CASA’S caesarian rate was 13 percent compared to the State of Guanajuato’s average rate of 35 percent. Although the hospital focuses on maternity services provided by the midwives and doctors, the integration of laboratory services also plays an important role in the health of CASA’s patients.

Lab technician Yolanda has worked at CASA for 17 years. “We’ve always provided good services at a low cost, but I think we also treat our patients with care and respect,” she says. The lab offers prenatal analyses, prenuptial tests, free HIV testing and medical certificates required for students, restaurant workers and other service workers. Tests for specific diseases also may be requested by the doctor or midwives. Yolanda explains these services are important, “because of the low prices and the accessibility,” noting that for many who live in the surrounding communities—especially single mothers and full-time workers—getting to the general hospital can be difficult, so they may not get the services they need.

Above all, the hospital strives to ensure quality care. The entire staff meets every two weeks to discuss complicated cases and how similar problems can be prevented in the future. Midwives, doctors and administrators work as a team to improve quality. If a midwife faces a complicated birth, doctors are on call for emergencies.

Tomorrow I will spend another day in the clinic, observing and assisting a professional midwife with her prenatal and postnatal consultations. If I’m lucky, I will see another birth. Soon I will transition back to my life in the US, but I will never forget my summer at CASA.

Mallory Betz is a CASA summer intern who will start her master’s degree program in women’s health/nurse midwifery this fall in the US.

US Embassy goes pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month
By Ambassador Antonio O. Garza

The US Embassy is going pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, wrapping a pink ribbon around the Embassy and turning the website pink to call attention to the issue.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month began in 1985 to emphasize the importance of breast cancer screening and early detection in saving women’s lives. This year, cities around the world are “going pink,” lighting their monuments pink to commemorate the month, including Paris’s Eiffel Tower, Chicago’s Sears Tower and Sydney’s Harbor Bridge. I will represent the people of the US as Mexico City lights the Diana Fountain pink.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month has made a difference. Mammography rates in the US have more than doubled for women age 50 and older, and breast cancer deaths have declined in the last 20 years. This is great progress, but in Mexico, too few women get screened, so breast cancer often is detected in later stages and harder to treat successfully.

The US-Mexico Partnership for Breast Cancer Awareness and Research brings together NGOs, health workers, experts and doctors in the US with counterparts in Mexico. First Ladies Laura Bush and Margarita Zavala officially inaugurated that partnership in March. Eighty women from 31 different organizations in Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara have participated in seminars on strategies for community outreach and awareness campaigns, and become part of a network that will continue to work together to help end this disease. The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center also collaborates on research with the Mexican National Cancer Institute.

Join the Embassy in going pink. Wear a pink ribbon, contribute to a charity, take your mom to the doctor, or watch your friend’s kids so she can go get screened. Help fight breast cancer and save lives.

Starbucks holds national coffee tasting

Coffee Tasting
Sat, Oct 11
Starbucks, cnr Canal and Hidalgo
Free, reservations required

This Saturday, all Starbucks stores in Mexico hold a free coffee tasting to educate customers about the nuances of and differences between different varieties of coffee. Reservations should be made in advance at the store.

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