One Carson City man spent a week in Panama providing health care services to those in need.
Dr. Bradley Pastro, with Advanced Chiropractic, served with 48 other chiropractors with the Chiropractors Restoring Energy Worldwide organization to provide free chiropractic services to nearly 50,000 people in Panama City at the end of March.
“We saw a lot of miracles,” Pastro said. “It was probably the most amazing experience I have ever had, also incredibly exhausting.”
CREW is a humanitarian organization started in 1996 that travels to Panama to provide chiropractic services to children, adults, inmates and even political officials.
The group provided services to orphanages, schools, civilians and even prisoners while in Panama City. Pastro said he even worked on a 98-year-old woman who had been carried into the city by her grandson from her village several miles away.
“It was awesome to see the smiles on the kids’ faces and their laughter,” Pastro said. “It is really cool stuff.”
“We do it to give and serve without any expectations of anything in return.”
Pastro has been a chiropractor since 1993 and has been practicing in Carson City since 1995. This is his first year going with CREW.
One of the more interesting parts of the trip was when the doctors went into the prison and adjusted the inmates.
“It was different... we were there unguarded but I think people get when you are there for a good reason,” Pastro said. “It is a privilege for them to get adjusted.”
“But if you are going to give it isn’t really up to me to decide who to give to.”
Because Panama is such a poor country, Pastro said many of the residents are only able to receive this kind of healthcare when mission organizations provide it for free.
“We could see massive amounts of people because there was no red tape so that really allows us to just go in and do our job,” Pastro said. “Some people came back over several days.”
But the country provided the organization a lot of support, busing the children to the doctors and providing volunteers to handle registration and management.
“They don’t have a lot of healthcare, so for them to experience this was neat,” Pastro said.
Pastro said providing healthcare like this to the Panamanians is incredibly important for their overall health.
“It is about removing interferences between the brain and the body,” Pastro said. “It is about letting people express their full human potential.”
It was just as beneficial for Pastro to have the experience as it was for the people who were helped.
“I wanted to go to just give — it is something the world needs to give love and serve is the essence of why we are here,” Pastro said.
Pastro said he’s looking forward to going back next year with the organization.
“I am not sure what next year has in store, but the mission, the vision is there,” Pastro said.
