Lurie Children’s Hospital Welcomes Bolivian Social Workers for Global Exchange on Patient Care
The group is hosted by Jim Manzardo, Lurie chaplain and volunteer with Solidarity Bridge.
This April, Lurie Children’s Hospital welcomed a group of our visiting Bolivian partners, including social workers Marizol Mamani and Carmen Salses, and Patricia Vargas, the director of our sister organization, Puente de Solidaridad.
Jim and a patient in Bolivia on a Solidarity Bridge medical mission trip in 2016.
During their visit, the Bolivian team met with members of Lurie’s chaplaincy and social work departments for a powerful exchange focused on integrated, compassionate care for pediatric patients and their families. They were hosted in part by Jim Manzardo, Lurie chaplain and longtime volunteer with Solidarity Bridge. Jim has traveled to Bolivia as a chaplain during Solidarity Bridge’s surgical missions, where he provides spiritual and emotional support to patients and families facing complex medical challenges—mirroring his compassionate work at Lurie.
Jim shares about his experience in Bolivia, “Their spiritual distress was no different than that of the patients and parents I encounter daily in my work as a pediatric chaplain at Lurie… What I have appreciated about Solidarity Bridge is its goal of understanding and appreciating the Bolivian culture, values and spirituality and collaborating with and learning from the local Bolivian medical community. ”
Social Workers talking with Lurie Chaplain, Meg Park-Landis, during their visit.
Solidarity Bridge is a nonprofit rooted in the Catholic tradition of social justice, committed to expanding access to surgical care for underserved populations in Bolivia and Paraguay. Welcoming all—regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation—the organization carries out its mission through annual medical mission trips, the training and mentorship of local surgeons, donations of medical equipment, and year-round, locally led surgical campaigns. Each mission emphasizes long-term, sustainable partnerships and integrative care models that include chaplains, social workers, and multidisciplinary surgical teams from both the U.S. and Latin America.
The group talks with Lurie Social worker, Hannah Ullrich, during the exchange.
Solidarity Bridge often invites their visiting Bolivian and Paraguayan colleagues to visit Lurie in order to witness a great example of children's health care being done well in the US. This year’s visit highlighted the hospital’s integrated approach to pediatric care—where social work, chaplaincy, and therapy services work hand-in-hand with medical teams to support the holistic needs of children and their families.
Dr. Rebecca Garcia volunteering at the Children’s Hospital in Bolivia with Solidarity Bridge in 2023.
“In hospitals in Bolivia, they might have one social worker for the entire hospital—and nothing like the chaplaincy position,” said Bolivian social worker, Marizol Mamani. “How wonderful to have that here.”
The exchange is part of Solidarity Bridge’s commitment to bidirectional learning—where North and South American teams learn from one another. U.S.-based surgeons and medical professionals, including Dr. Rebecca Garcia, a pediatric neurologist at Lurie, frequently travel with Solidarity Bridge to Bolivia or Paraguay to provide hands-on mentorship and advanced surgical training, while learning about the local reality and surgical context of their medical peers.
In 2023, through the leadership of Dr. Art DiPatri, former Lurie neurosurgeon, Solidarity Bridge and its partners performed the first pediatric epilepsy surgery in a public Bolivian hospital—a milestone achievement in the country’s surgical care landscape. Solidarity Bridge continues to work with Dr. DiPatri, Dr. Garcia, and other neurosurgeons and neurologists to advance pediatric epilepsy diagnosis and treatment in Bolivia and in neighboring Paraguay.
To learn more about joining a medical mission with Solidarity Bridge, Click Here.