Medical voluntourism in Honduras: ‘Helping’ the poor?

Abstract

Medical voluntourism, where health professionals travel to another country to provide medical services is a growing, but under-researched phenomenon. This article, based on qualitative research with medical voluntourists in Honduras, uses Scheyven’s (2001) continuum of voluntourism to explore the complexities of medical voluntourism. The research found that while ostensibly ‘helpful’, volunteer tourism in Honduras is often harmful, entrenching paternalism and inequitable relationships; and that many voluntourists are ignorant of the underlying power and privilege issues inherent in voluntourism. While there are examples of volunteer tourism as both educational and as a form of social action, the article argues that these are not natural consequences of voluntourism but must be nurtured. As such this article highlights some implications for practice, noting that addressing the paternalism inherent in much medical voluntourism requires an honest appraisal of the benefits and harm of voluntourism by sending and host organizations, education and consciousness-raising amongst volunteers, and long-term relationship building.

Volunteering to Colonize: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Impacts of Voluntourism

“…The potential projects, for example could include building schools, working in hospitals or teaching English to the local population. This definition is derived from the expanding discourse community of voluntourism and purposefully excludes long-term voluntourism-esc projects like Peace Corps (Daldeniz and Hampton, 2010, Wearing 2001, McLennan 2014, Dykhuis 2010.…”

Avoiding pitfalls in overseas medical educational experiences

“…However, with growing interest also brings about an increased concern for ethical practices in global health training and common pitfalls of "voluntourism". 2 Increased interest in global health has significant potential benefits for both host countries, and participating individuals and institutions. Medical students who participate in an international rotation are more likely to work in a resource-poor setting, care for poor and ethnic minorities, and choose primary care specialties after graduating.…”

“…9 Despite these benefits, there is real risk of disempowering, demeaning, dangerous, and unethical practices by medical trainees that can harm the very communities they are trying to serve. 2,[10][11][12][13][14] These electives can be self-serving, doing little to strengthen or build sustainable health systems and imposing undue burden on the local health facilities, particularly if trainees are sent without appropriate training or accountability.…”

Self-transcendence: an alternative explanation for voluntourism in developing countries

“…Reasons mostly advanced by those involved in volunteering activities include but are not limited to performing charity work such as offering free medical services to poor communities (McLennan, 2014), education programs at all levels of education with the aim of developing skills that would improve the social economic status of poor communities (Stoddart and Rogerson, 2004;McLennan, 2014;Zeddies and Millei, 2015), offering support to conservation of wildlife (Sujarittanonta, 2014), providing help to reconstruct disaster stricken areas (Zahra and McIntosh, 200;Lo and Lee, 2011) and religious based activities (McGehee, 2014). It is common to find a group of volunteers also taking an opportunity to visit different tourism attractions within the country they are visiting or taking part in different tourism activities during their leisure time (McKee,et al ,… why people volunteer,par.…”