Volunteers battle health crisis of asylum seekers in Mexico

In this Dec. 14, 2019, photo, Psyche Calderon, center, pauses for a moment as she works alongside other volunteer health care professionals in a shelter for migrants in Tijuana, Mexico. A burgeoning grassroots movement of health professionals and medical students from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border is quietly battling on the front lines to keep asylum seekers healthy and safe. It is a daunting task taken on by volunteers trying to desperately tend to a need left largely unmet by the governments of both countries. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) In this Dec. 14, 2019, photo, Psyche Calderon, center, pauses for a moment as she works alongside other volunteer health care professionals in a shelter for migrants in Tijuana, Mexico. A burgeoning grassroots movement of health professionals and medical students from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border is quietly battling on the front lines to keep asylum seekers healthy and safe. It is a daunting task taken on by volunteers trying to desperately tend to a need left largely unmet by the governments of both countries. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

By JULIE WATSON / The Associated Press December 19, 2019 6 min read

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) – When the Honduran boy complained of a toothache, Dr. Psyche Calderon asked the obvious question: “When did the pain start?”

The answer broke her heart.

“When La Mara broke all my teeth and killed all my family,” the 14-year-old said.

He said little else about the attack by the infamous Central American gang, La Mara Salvatrucha. Just: “I was the only one that survived.”

Calderon is not a therapist, nor a lawyer or a dentist. She is a general practitioner volunteering to provide care for Central Americans stuck in Mexico while they try to obtain asylum in the United States. There was little she could do for this teenager.