Some of the treasures of the history of the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine of the Order of Augustinian Recollects and the environments and spaces where it has carried out its work throughout history and today.
Since 1962, the Augustinian Recollects have attended to the Parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Los Hospitales, in the Doctors’ Colony of Mexico City. Within the parish’s jurisdiction, there are at least three hospitals that serve the population of the entire country: General Hospital, Federico Gómez Children’s Hospital, and the 20th Century Medical Centre.
The statistical data they manage are staggering: annually, 50,000 ill people are admitted, and 850,000 outpatients receive consultations. As reference centres for the whole country with highly centralized management of specializations, 60% of the users come from outside the capital.
Furthermore, 72% of them have limited economic resources. This is exacerbated by circumstances that often require extended stays, leading to direct consequences: the depletion of savings—if any existed—, job losses due to absence from work, a surge in unforeseen expenses, and the payment for treatments and medicines that are costlier than usual.
The Augustinian Recollects do not only care for the spiritual health of those within their parish jurisdiction. They are cognizant of the needs of the vast number of transients who are strangers in the Mexican capital. Illness alone is a significant burden, but the companions of the sick, who often are minors, face their own challenges: they watch their loved ones suffer and have nowhere to stay, shower, wash their clothes, find someone to talk to or vent their frustrations. They live in solitude on the streets of a macro-city devoid of compassion and full of dangers.
With the support of civil society, the Augustinian Recollects established the Centre for Integrated Development, Recovery, and Accompaniment (Centro de Acompañamiento y Recuperación de Desarrollo Integral, CARDI), a social health project that welcomes transient individuals to its facilities, offering them shelter, washrooms, food, emotional therapies, and a clinic with medicines and treatments that are inexpensive or even free of charge.
However, CARDI has become more than just an assistance centre; it has transformed into a benchmark for training. The Centre began by training volunteers to provide caregiving and accompaniment to the ill, but soon recognized the potential for transformative activities in volunteer work and started conducting courses for the broader society. It has become a national benchmark in areas such as logotherapy, thanatology, and the management of volunteer work.
CARDI and the Augustinian Recollects are supported by an extensive network that includes universities, corporations, third-sector institutions, and mass media, all of which maintain mandatory and constant contact with civil authorities.
