OPERATION: CHILDREN

McLane nurse ‘blessed’ to help kids in Ecuador

May 14, 2023

Vilma Domingo, a registered nurse at McLane Children’s Medical Center in Temple, visits with a young patient and the child’s mother at a hospital in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Domingo was part of a surgical team that treated nearly 50 kids at the Ecuadorian hospital in a week. Courtesy photo

After a week of surgeries on children at a hospital in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Vilma Domingo and a co-worker check out the giant tortoises on the Galapagos Islands. Domingo, a registered nurse, is one of several Temple health professionals who make medical and humanitarian missions to places like Ecuador, Kenya, Guatemala and Honduras. Courtesy photo

DAVID STONE | OUR TOWN TEMPLE

Since 2010, teams of physicians, surgeons, nurses and anesthesiologists from Baylor Scott & White McLane Children’s Medical Center in Temple have been making pilgrimages to third-world countries, providing surgeries and medical care to kids in need. Here’s the third installment of OPERATION: CHILDREN, an occasional series designed to tell their stories.

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As a registered nurse at McLane Children’s Medical Center, Vilma Domingo helps treat hundreds of young patients every month. This year she decided to join a team of local volunteers to take her skills and love of kids to a distant land.

“I was part of an 11-member team from McLane Children’s that went to Guayaquil, Ecuador, in February,” said Domingo, an 11-year veteran of the Temple hospital. “We were part of a surgical mission at a hospital there, and we treated about 49 kids. I served as the recovery room nurse.

The team included surgeons, anesthesiologists, a variety of nurses including an operating room nurse, a surgical technician, a certified registered nurse anesthesiologist and a local medical school student.

“We worked with doctors and staff at the hospital in Guayaquil,” she said. “They were very helpful. Our patients were preselected by the hospital staff in Ecuador, and we screened them as well after we arrived.”

Domingo grew up in the Philippines and worked there as a nurse for 10 years, then served in a United Kingdom hospital another decade before moving to Temple.

“The hospital in Ecuador reminded me of the hospital where I started in the Philippines,” she said. “It was an open-bay hospital, meaning there were many beds and patients in a single room. We treated kids suffering from birth defects and hernias, and some required plastic surgery. We removed a sixth finger from one young patient.”

“Our mission to Ecuador was an amazing experience,” she said. “The people are so warm and appreciative — you can actually feel their sincerity. They have limited access to health care, and I feel blessed that I am able to help them.”

“As a team, we are fortunate to go to other parts of the world and help in a small way. It was an amazing thing, and I’m glad I did it. I was definitely out of my comfort zone, but it was amazing. I will do it again.”

Next time, she could be accompanied by her husband, Glen Domingo, and works as an GI technician at McLanes. He said he would jump at the opportunity to help others who have limited access to medical care.

While the team was definitely on a medical mission, they did take time to enjoy a little Ecuadorian hospitality.
“We stayed at a four-star hotel called the UniPark, and it was very nice,” she said. “It was attached to a small mall, and we could do some shopping after work. They also laid out lunch and snacks on a table at the hospital. The food was great.”

“After we completed the mission, we made a stop in the Galápagos Islands — an amazing place,”

The trip to Ecuador had a bit of a rocky start, Domingo said.

“Yeah, we almost missed our plane,” she said, smiling. “We flew out of Killeen and the plane took off late. We were supposed to have a layover in Dallas, but we were so late we actually had to run to the airplane. People were cheering us one. We got there less than a minute before they closed the doors.”