Columbus sailed through this archipelago 500 years ago. Although a few islands in the Grenadines are privately owned and boast some of the world's most luxurious hotels and resorts, some of the islands lack the basic "necessities" of modern life. Many of the 106,000 islanders have little access to basic health care, and some have never seen a doctor; virtually none of the inhabitants have even heard of chiropractic.
Earlier this year, two doctors and 10 students from Palmer arrived in the Grenadines and set up clinics on the peaceful island of Bequia, which has a population of about 5,000. Their 10-day mission was to promote chiropractic and provide quality health care to the islanders.
Dr. Shayan Sheybani, the Palmer liaison to St. Vincent and the Grenadines, who participated in a chiropractic mission to the islands last October, was joined on the expedition to the Grenadines by Dr. Timothy Gross. Working with Sylvester Tannis, the government administrator to Bequia, the caregivers set up clinics in a variety of locations, including a sports complex, a hospital and a police station.
The islanders who came for treatment, ages 4-90, found out about the clinics from radio and television ads, and via word of mouth. Dr. Gross observed that the Bequians, because of their vigorous lifestyle and low-fat diet, were generally in good physical condition.
Student Steve Pagano noted some of the more common physical complaints the mission doctors treated: "Soccer, called 'netball' on the island, is the main sport and a factor in the many lower extremity injuries we treated. When you couple very common inversion sprains and knee injuries with the mountainous terrain that the Bequians traverse, these subluxation translated into many low-back complaints."
One patient, treated by intern Mark Schutte and Dr. Gross, had injured his foot in a boating accident, and was unable to bend his foot back. "He had no sensory or motor response in the foot and along the lateral side of his leg," explained Dr. Gross. "Before he left our clinic, he had some tingling feeling in the areas that were numb."
Several patients who had seen Dr. Sheybani last October returned for a second visit to the clinics. Among them was a patient in his early 20s known as Seifert, who had previously suffered a stroke and had a history of strokes in his family. As a carpenter, Seifert's work requires that he be in sound physical condition. In October, some atrophy had set in on one side of Seifert's body, but when he visited the Palmer doctors for the second time, Dr. Sheybani said Seifert was a different man, noting a decrease in the atrophy. "We definitely made a change in his life."
Dr. Sheybani expressed the significance of the Palmer mission to the Grenadines. "We have to teach our patients what chiropractic is all about. These visits help students promote chiropractic as well as teach them how to interact with people," said Dr. Sheybani. "This truly is a cultural experience for the students, who learned and really enjoyed themselves at the same time."
"The students did a great job of representing Palmer and spreading the word about chiropractic," commented Dr. Gross. "I was so proud of all of them."
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