Doctor creates non-profit to help Puerto Rico

80 volunteer hours a week. That’s what one local doctor put in to help those affected by the hurricane in Puerto Rico.

Dr. Mayra Rodriguez was supposed to relocate to Idaho Falls to work at Mountain View Hospital in September but then tragedy struck when hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico.

“My parents were on the island vacationing from New York City and I had no idea if they were dead or alive for a week and it took more than a week for me to hear their voices. I actually didn’t hear my dad or talk to my dad until I arrived on the island to get them out,” says Dr. Rodriguez.

Thankfully she was reunited with her parents but she felt like she needed to do more.

“I went back to New York and I said ‘I’ve got to do something, I’m a physician with a lot of connections.’ and a lot of my doctor friends said ‘we’ll help you.’ so we started a non-profit.”

Dr. Rodriguez and fellow doctors started “Commit 2 PR” to help those in need.

“When you go and there’s families living with no roof, families that still don’t have portable drinking water, still don’t have electricity and there seems to be no urgency about the matter then as a physician you should feel an obligation.”

She says it feels great to help, a country that she considers a second home.

“It feels wonderful, the town in particular that I’m helping is a town where my grandmother was born, it’s the town where my father grew up, it’s a town where I learned to ride a bike in. It’s the town that gave me a childhood.”

Dr. Rodriguez also says she can’t thank mountain view hospital enough for being patient as she got her non-profit up and running.