Dearborn physician Eliezer de Leon, 56, is part of a medical mission that provides free treatment to thousands of impoverished citizens in the Philippines.
Spotlight: Eliezer de Leon
Doctor helps poor Filipinos
Philippines native gives free, crucial services
By Karen Bouffard / The Detroit News
DEARBORN — One of seven siblings born in the post-World War II Philippines, Dr. Eliezer de Leon was orphaned at the age of 5.
His mother died of acute pancreatitis in 1952. And within a year, his father died of tuberculous meningitis.
“Nobody dies of those illnesses here in the U.S.,” said de Leon, 56, who was adopted by an aunt and became the only child of the seven to finish school.
The futility of his parents’ deaths and gratitude for his life today are what propel de Leon to return to the Philippines to take free medical care to thousands of people who lack even the barest necessities of life — adequate food, clean water, sanitation and medical care.
De Leon is part of a medical mission run by the Philippine Medical Association of Michigan that sends dozens of doctors, surgeons, nurses, dentists, pharmacists and other medical professionals to the Philippines annually to provide free treatment. De Leon has made the trip six times.
As a Dearborn internist, de Leon mainly treats older adults who suffer from high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease, diabetes and other ailments typical of middle-class Americans. In the Philippines, he treats patients for all of those conditions plus diseases associated with extreme poverty and medical neglect.
About one-third of the country’s 10 million residents are destitute, de Leon said. And in its capital, Manila, there are families with children who live in makeshift shelters on an enormous landfill called the “Smokey Mountain” and eat nothing but trash.
“The most prevalent diseases are tuberculosis, malnourishment, cleft lip and palate — we see a lot of parasites, worms that infest the webs of the toes,” de Leon said, noting that preventive medicine and prenatal care are nearly nonexistent.
The medical professionals treat thousands of people during two-week visits, working in shifts from dawn to dusk. Hundreds of people per day arrive on foot or in buses from many miles away and wait all day for their chance to see a doctor.
“We give them snacks, soft drinks and water. One time, a busload came after dark, and they stayed all night so that they could be seen the next day,” de Leon said.
In addition to poverty, de Leon blames government corruption and an elitist social structure for the country’s dire medical system. Hospitals run two programs: one for the rich and the other for the poor, he said.
High-tech diagnostic tests, prescription medicines and medical equipment are available to people with money or medical insurance. But the vast majority of people can’t afford to pay, and can access medical care only through government-run clinics.
“The public hospital doesn’t cost a thing, but you need to buy your own surgical gloves, IV tubes, medicines — everything,” de Leon said, adding that many women give birth at home because they can’t afford to purchase such things.
“The only thing that is provided is the services of the physician or the surgeon.”
Doctors in the Philippines make so little money that they commonly resent the missionaries for taking away business, he said. Many physicians become registered nurses and accept better-paying nursing positions in the United States.
The missionaries spend months assembling the medical equipment, supplies and medicines they need for each medical mission. They accept donations of leftover prescription medicines and save unused samples of drugs they receive from pharmaceutical company sales representatives. They purchase many supplies with their own money.
Everything they need, from diagnostic equipment to cotton balls, is shipped ahead. Whatever they run out of, they must purchase in the Philippines. And even basic items like surgical gloves can be hard to come by.
“All that they provide is a place for us to work,” de Leon said of the Philippine government, adding that operating rooms often are set up in tents. “One time, we treated 700 patients under two mango trees.”
De Leon feels privileged to have a happy, comfortable life in America. His wife, Myrna de Leon, 54, is a neonatal physician whom he met while attending medical school at the University of the East in the Philippines.
He’s passed along his love of missionary work to the eldest of his three children, Ella de Leon, 27, an epidemiologist who attended her first mission last year.
“All we did was work, eat and sleep,” Ella de Leon wrote recently about her experience. “That may not sound like much fun, but I really enjoyed the experience.
“It reminded me that you can do something very small ... and still help another person.”
De Leon said he knows the missions can’t possibly address the magnitude of need in the Philippines. But he hopes to inspire other physicians practicing in wealthier nations to relieve as much of the suffering as they can.
“I don’t think the health problem in the Philippines is going to change very soon,” he said. “It’s more of an example to other physicians of the world to do the same thing, to (return to) their own country to give back.”
http://www.detnews.com/2004/metro/0406/27/b03-195724.htm