Delgado Helps Charity

With the Toronto Blue Jays in town this week, first baseman Carlos Delgado went to bat for his impoverished homeland yesterday afternoon at the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children.

With the help of family friend Ernesto Gonzalez, the associate director of multicultural affairs for MGH, Delgado has given his support to a project that will establish a communication link, called telemedicine, between MGH and Buen Samaritano (Good Samaritan) hospital, located in his hometown of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.

After a recent visit to Aguadilla, a city on the west coast of Puerto Rico, Gonzalez convinced MGH and private donors, such as Delgado, that the undermanned and poorly educated hospitals of the San Carlos Health Care System are in desperate need of assistance to combat the ailments of its patients.

"There was not even a single pediatrician in the hospital," said Gonzalez, who also teaches dermatology at MGH. "After seeing that the need was there, [MGH] said it would be interested, but obviously we needed to find financial support. I started talking to Carlos' father and others I knew on the island to see if they would be interested in this effort."

The collaborative project between MGH and San Carlos Health will enable neurologists at the MGH to use video-conferencing technology to consult with physicians at Buen Samaritano, talk with patients and observe their behavior before helping to prescribe a diagnosis and recommended treatment.

Partners Telemedicine, a division of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, has further advanced the benefits of the project by offering global access to clinical and educational services, allowing health care providers and patients around the world to connect with each other.

This enables geographically dispersed individuals access to the knowledge and resources of world-class physicians. Some of the services provided include telepathology, teleradiology, teledermatology, educational video-conferencing and web-based streaming media programming.

According to Gonzalez, the project will be the first philanthropic effort in which neither the patient nor the hospital will be paying for the services provided by the hospital. Rather than having the government or major corporations pay for the consultation services, private donors, such as Delgado, will be ones footing the bill.

"In the long run, the partnership with Massachusetts General Hospital on the education side will be great," Delgado said. "Once you start seeing cases, and the [MGH] doctor is right here to give his expertise to doctors down there [in Aguadilla], there will be an immediate beneficial impact for the patient."

Delgado, a 2000 Players Choice Award winner for Major League Baseball that included Overall Player of the Year, has already made numerous financial contributions to Puerto Rican charities in Aguadilla and its surrounding area during the past two years.

Last season, The Players Trust for Children, the only foundation of its kind in professional sports, donated $57,000 to four Puerto Rico-based charities on behalf of Delgado.

Delgado continued his allegiance to underprivileged children with a visit to the playroom of the pediatrics department at MGH. These young patients and parents lucky enough to chat with the smiling Blue Jays star received an autographed baseball and a photo.

Ten-year-old Aimee Saulnier was one of these patients present yesterday. Last November, the youngster from Whitman was diagnosed with kidney failure. MGH worked with the Saulnier family to find a donor and, according to Saulnier's mother, Karen, a transplant has been scheduled for June.

But while the family awaits the surgery in nervous anticipation, Saulnier said she knows an appearance by someone as privileged as Delgado will have a lasting effect not only on her child, but also on other children like hers struggling through misfortune.

"It's wonderful to have someone like [Delgado] come in and take time out of his busy schedule to see these kids," she said. "It really helps to lift these kids' spirits up."

For Delgado, such contributions to charity are small ways that he says can help keep him grounded and keep his priorities in check.

"I've always been in a situation where I like to help the people in my country, especially the people in my area," he said. "I'm very fortunate to be in a position where I'm at. Sometimes there are people less fortunate than us, and if I can make any kind of impact, if I can make any difference helping these people in need, that's great."