Foreign Travel? Research Their Medical Systems First

My niece, Sarah, is a recent college graduate. She’s done several short-term missions trips to countries in Africa, including Kenya and Uganda. She also helped with community development and outreach projects on Indian reservations in Oklahoma during her college years. The other thing that is notable about her collegiate period is that she started to have seizures.

Teaching English in China

Sarah’s concern upon graduation was that she really wanted to serve overseas in a capacity that would help people, and hopefully, would enable her to introduce them to relationships with Jesus Christ. Funding for such work is always dicey, so she accepted a position as an English teacher in China. She knows that she cannot discuss religious topics, or political ones, at all. But she can live her life in such a way that her students will take the initiative to find out on their own about the Living Lord who motivates her actions.

In China, she had a few seizures, ran out of her medication ( dilantin), and found a doctor. She found, or her father found for her, a supplier who could get her the medicine she needed. And she has been really doing well and enjoying China immensely.

Medical Crisis

Recently, she traveled to another province for the Chinese new year holiday. This was her first vacation in China, and she was really liking everything. Then, without warning, she started having more-frequent seizures. Her father made an “executive decision” that she should come home for a few months and stabilize. In less than a week’s time, before she could catch a flight home, her condition worsened to the point where she remained hospitalized.

Her sister Deborah, who also has a passport, got a rush visa to head to China and prepare her for the flight home. Deborah was appalled at the level of treatment that was available there, and has asked for prayer to help effect a medical evacuation as quickly as possible.

Currently

At this time, I have no knowledge of the cost involved, except that it is beyond the family’s available resources. Sarah stops breathing during these seizures (something new, as far as I know), and is expected to require nursing care during the flight back to the United States.

We are also requesting that Christian believers join in prayer, asking that the way be provided to get her back to America safely, as well as a way to pay for the medical costs.

No one has informed me as of yet where contributions may be made, but if you are viewing this and wish to be of assistance, send e-mail to huckstech [at] warmmail [dot] com (please use “medical assistance” in the title). I will respond with the information as soon as I have it.

Update: There is now an account at WAMU / JP Morgan Chase. However, the bank forbids us from sharing the number over the Internet. Here is some information from our press release.

WHAT: I am writing to you because our family is desperate for some help.  My daughter Sarah Hucks, a Monterey High School and an Oral Roberts University graduate is ill and in a foreign hospital in Chounguing, China.  She was transported there after suffering multiple seizures in China and has been in the hospital there for over a week.  The care in China is not like US care and we don’t have the extended insurance or the capitol to medically transport Sarah from Chongquing to Hong Kong ($51,000.00) or to Tokyo ($65,000.00).  Repatriation to UCSF or Stanford would be upwards to $200,000.00.
 
We have contacted the State Department and the local Embassy in Cheng Du which will make a health and welfare stop but for some reason can not assist with repatriation for Americans working or in Sarah’s case teaching as a missionary in a foreign school in China.
 
I know you are not medical professionals but we desperately need your help and the help of any others you may know who believe in America, who believe in compassion and have a heart for others.  For more information please do not hesitate in calling me, Vince Hucks, at 831-915-7231. Any donations, resources, and help would be greatly appreciated. You can make donations to Vince Hucks with Sarah Hucks in the memo and mailed to P.O. Box 1094 Seaside, CA 93955. Thank you for your prayers and support while we try to get Sarah in a stable conditions with the medical attention she needs and back to the US for the correct treatment.

Summation

There is a lesson to be learned. I do not think that Sarah would change anything. She originally wanted to be a medical missionary back when she went to college. She would rather burn out on the front lines than rust out in the base camp. More believers should live this way.

But, given the choice, learn about the medical system of the nation you intend to visit before you go. What is their care like? If you have a problem, are you going to need to be evacuated because their system cannot provide the needed care? If it is necessary, will it be possible for family members to obtain visas on short notice? Will it be possible to contact an American embassy or consulate from where you expect to be? Are there adequate communication and transportation resources in the area where you will be?

Again, I ask for your prayers, and if you have the ability to assist us with getting Sarah home, please contact me at the above e-mail address. Thank you.

IceRocket: foreign travel, medical assistance