COMAYAGUA, Honduras –
U.S. Army Maj. Jonathan Reagan, Joint Task Force Bravo Medical Element physical therapist, travelled to Centro de Rehabilitación Integral de Comayagua (CRIC) to visit with Honduran patients and provide follow-up care for their rehabilitation process, Aug. 3, here.
Reagan, who has been practicing physical therapy for 16 years and is from Lebanon, Missouri, serves the Comayagua community on a weekly basis providing care and building relationships with the local community.
“My overall goal is to improve the quality care of our local patients, while improving or maintaining the patient’s area of injury,” stated Reagan. “The weekly missions have been an eye-opening experience for me dealing with problems ranging from pediatric fire burns to medical patients that have had strokes.”
The Ministry of Health of Comayagua and MEDEL coordinate these weekly missions. The main objectives are to provide the local community with musculoskeletal evaluations and interventions, but MEDEL’s impact goes beyond just medical care.
“During my time here the relationship between the JTF-Bravo Medical Element and the CRIC in Comayagua has allowed us to not only provide quality care, but also raise funds to supply the local community and the CRIC who desperately needed to operate better as an effective rehabilitation facility and give access to the many who don't otherwise get quality healthcare if not for the CRIC,” said Reagan.
Additionally, Reagan was inspired by his interaction with his patients to develop a fundraiser for the CRIC facility and for one of his patients in particular.
“The fundraiser is something I’m doing on a personal level after seeing the devastation some of our local patients have experienced,” explained Reagan. “One patient in particular became paraplegic, and almost quadriplegic, from a gunshot wound. I would like to raise money so that before I return home I can present her with enough money to substantially help her situation. Money won’t improve the loss of the use of her legs, but it can help with the financial burden that this tragedy has put upon her and her family and hopefully remind her that she is not alone and to have hope.”
The CRIC was established in 1993, but it wasn’t until 2013 that JTF-Bravo MEDEL became involved with the facility and its patients.
JTF-Bravo regularly partners with the partner nation Ministries of Health throughout Central America to provide various levels and types of medical care to include physical therapy, trauma, preventive medicine and dental.