How did you end up in Mexico?
My father and stepmother were traveling in Mexico and (my husband and I) were supposed to meet them here. We went first to Uruapan to have a look. The countryside was beautiful but the situation seemed impossible to us. There was a steady stream of trucks going around the plaza and a lot of vehicle exhaust and it rained so hard that when it hit the ground it splashed up to about your waist. So we came here to this area to meet my father and my stepmother. We ended up staying in Jocotepec rather than Chapala because we thought it would be cheaper. In those days the inn in Jocotepec was functioning and the rooms had fireplaces and was very inexpensive. My father insisted that we go down to Melaque in the summer to make sure that we didn’t decide to settle at the beach. It was beautiful and warm and breezy at first. But then the breeze stopped and it was like being under a hot, wet blanket. The mosquitoes were rampant and the hotel next door had a continuing construction operation going on, because as long as they were doing construction, their taxes were lower. When we came back to Jocotepec, it seemed like we were coming home.
You were lucky that at that age you didn’t have to work anymore.
We had saved up money and thought we would retire for a while when we were still young enough to enjoy it, and then go back. My husband John was a commercial photographer and he soon discovered that there was no one here who could manage aerial photography. So he got into that and it became our bread and butter. We had a child down here, so that gave us an FM2 without having to have, or spend, an enormous amount of money. Of course, since he was born here, he was a Mexican citizen. As such, the Mexican government wanted to make sure we could support him.
Were you a stay-at-home mom?
I was at first, but by the time he wasn’t quite so time consuming, I was already involved in trying to keep the Centro de Salud in Jocotepec open.
What is the Centro de Salud?
Centros de Salud are in every municipality in the country. They are public medical clinics, not free, but right next to it. The reason they charge is because they discovered if they didn’t, the Mexicans who used them wouldn’t think they were worth anything. Jocotepec had just been promised one and they had the building, but there was no staff. So we went to the Jalisco Department of Health and asked them when they were going to staff it. We kept getting the run around. In those days we went to the big Autonoma Medical School (UAG) because they were looking around for someplace to give their students practical experience. They were very excited about it. There was already a building and the people of Jocotepec wanted it. It was a go. When the Department of Health heard about this, they descended and so the Jalisco Department of Health ended up staffing it. It’s still there. This was in about 1974.
Why your keen interest in a neighborhood clinic?
All I had to do was look around and see all the people who had absolutely no medical recourse. There was the IMSS but hardly anyone was covered in it. A lot of them still aren’t. Out here in the sticks, nobody tells employers that they have to cover their workers’ health. In those days, the Centros de Salud didn’t have a whole lot in terms of supplies and medicines. In fact, they still don’t.
How did Niños Incapacitados get started?
I saw that however bad medical care was in Jocotepec, it wasn’t all that good in Chapala, either. A friend of mine, Mickey Church, who lived in Ajijic and with whom I had worked in the Chili Cookoff, decided that maybe we should try and do something there. We talked to the head of DIF Chapala, who is always the wife of the municipal president (mayor). Her name was Laura Robles. She was the daughter of the presidente instead of his wife because he was divorced. She was very interested because each woman who heads up DIF wants to leave some kind of monument behind. Hers was going to be the rehabilitation center in DIF. But it didn’t do much good to have that if they couldn’t get braces, or any of the stuff they needed for the center. We settled on helping just kids. No one could possibly take care of everybody so we took on disabled kids from birth to 16 years old. Robles was a great help plowing through the paperwork and getting things set up. The constitution was set up in 1993. The organization grew by leaps and bounds with Silvia Flores as its first president. I convinced Lance Elmstrom to become its next president. He was very active, always out in the community collecting funds from residents and tourists alike. The group did some fund-raising, though not on the scale it currently does.
How do people know how to contact Niños Incapacitados?
We publicize a lot in the Mexican papers and word travels fast. We see at least 200 kids in a year. That’s not counting returns.
Explain how Niños Incapacitados hands over money for treatment?
The kid’s parents have to come up with an estimate of what the surgery or treatment is going to cost. It has to be on the hospital’s stationery or that of the doctor who is going to treat the child. Then we advance the money to the parents. We have rarely had anyone not use the money the way it was supposed to be used. We do insist that the surgery or treatment be done at public hospitals, except in very rare cases. We are already somewhat familiar with the child in question because our “clinic” person, Rich Peterson, has screened the kid. He’s wonderful at talking to the children and the parents. If a mother comes into see us on “clinic day,” and has a child with her who can’t walk, we suggest to her that she take him to the Hospital Civil in Guadalajara. We pay for the transportation to get them there and she has to present us with the bus tickets. She has to bring the paperwork stating the child’s diagnosis and the proposed course of treatment. If he needs braces, we buy those. If he needs treatment, we pay for that. We don’t pay for treatments for colds or flu – just serious, life-changing things. However, if a kid has a broken leg we do deal with that.
How have the ailments that you are treating changed since the beginning?
We treated cerebral palsy more than anything else in the beginning, but it didn’t take long before it was convulsions. Convulsions often run in families and since many of these little towns were so inbred for so many years, a large part of the population has more convulsives than you would expect. We spend a lot of money on anti-convulsive medicine. It gets more expensive all the time and some of the kids are on two or three medications.
What is the current budget of Niños Incapacitados?
Last year we spent 873,418 pesos for medicines, surgery, medical equipment, medical studies, therapies, various treatments and transportation for young patients.
Some people here see you as a hero for your years of devotion to this very worthy cause.
I have a profound respect for what I call all of our “unsung” heroes, the people who work so hard to raise the funds we need to help the nearly 200 kids currently enrolled in our program. All of our volunteers are heroes – the people who work in the clinics, maintain our excellent website and flip burgers at the Chili Cookoff.
Throughout her years seeing to the health of local children, even with her own home being used as a clinic for some time, Frost wrote several published novels and worked for a time for the Guadalajara Reporter. The current president of Niños Incapacitados, Bernard Downes, said of her: “Niños Incapacitados owes Joan an enormous debt of gratitude for all her years of hard work, dedication and expertise. Her vision and perseverance and her ability to bring together the people to realize that vision have brought us to where we are today. Our heartfelt thanks and sincere appreciation, Joan, for everything you have done for Niños Incapacitados.” Downes added that he has told Frost that although she will not be on the board next year, there will always be a seat for her at the table.
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