I've been in Guatemala off and on for over 17 years[0]. My parents came down later and started a free medical clinic.<p>Healthcare for "Indians" here is often terrible[1]. There's tons of discrimination, and "indian" is often used as an insult ("que indio!"). There's a feedback loop, because the people distrust hospitals and thus go less since "people die there".<p>It's further compounded by local villager beliefs. My mom has several stories of kids dying, literally because their parents insisted on having a priest do something first, delaying critical care by hours. Or not treating things and losing a leg or more because of a simple cut. Stuff that we might take as basic, obvious things, are simply not.<p>Oh, and medicine compliance is extra difficult when the patients can't read and have relatives telling the patient that medicine is an evil trick.<p>Even giving out birth control faces opposition. Apparently a lot of the men think if their wife doesn't get pregnant every so often, she must be seeing another man on the side. Often women desperately don't want to have more kids, but "must". (And mix in a high infant mortality rate, and sometimes women won't even name the child for a while after birth to avoid attachment. Pretty fucked up.)<p>I'm alternately amazed and repulsed regarding the people that work and try to fix this. It's an unending stream of fucked-up-ness. My parents' clinic sees 50-70 people a day (3 days a week), and that's just from 3 small villages. Sure, it's great that they save people and no doubt that's what motivates them. But I step back and look at the overall horror and the constant onslaught -- it seems so hopeless without real large scale efforts. (Which really, probably translate to having another country come in and run things.) I just don't know how people deal with this - I certainly cannot face it.<p>Finally, keep in mind that overall, Guatemala is a rather messed up country with too much violence and incompetence. Healthcare is just one aspect. When there's essentially zero police response, things tend to go downhill quickly. Anyone can get away with anything, so long they aren't stopped in the act. (Hence every place, down to McDonalds, has "guards" with shotguns.)<p>0: I visited when I was 15 and realised I could drink all I wanted without being carded and it was cheap, so I dropped out and moved down. Ended up staying a bit too long.<p>1: Well healthcare in Guatemala is pretty shitty overall, even if you're paying and trying to find decent doctors. Bad education or just straight-out fraud (insisting on unnecessary surgeries, for the money). Some things, if done in the US or proper countries, would be viewed as outright criminal, beyond negligence.