Last modified: Monday, January 29, 2007 8:16 PM EST Occupational therapist Susan Higgins rests against a therapy ball outside her Norton home. (Staff photo by MIKE GEORGE) Local occupational therapist pays humanitarian visit to Mexico BY REBECCA KEISTER / SUN CHRONICLE STAFF NORTON -- On her last day working at a clinic for disabled children in Juarez, Mexico, occupational therapist Susan Higgins broke down in tears. It was right after she met Jorge, a 4-year-old boy with cerebral palsy and microcephaly (a smaller than normal brain) whose involuntary tongue thrusts were keeping him from eating properly. Thinking she couldn't do much to help the little boy, she tried to teach him to chew by mushing his food further back in his mouth. "I held his mouth shut so he would swallow," Higgins said. "I looked back (after treating him) and he was chewing a cracker all by himself. After that, I just burst out crying. It's the little things that seem so common sense." Higgins, 42, a Norton resident, traveled earlier this month to a clinic that is part of the Fundacion Juarez Integra, a group of nonprofit organizations dedicated to improving the lives of disabled children in Juarez. It was founded by families caring for disabled children and grew into a network of clinics after they joined forces with other area nonprofits. "Kids there with disabilities can't go to public schools or day care centers," Higgins said. "Parents have an extraordinary burden." She traveled to Mexico with two other occupational therapists, who use everyday tasks and activities to improve movement function in patients. Higgins said she was inspired by her office mate at the New England Institute of Technology, where Higgins is a professor in the assistant occupational therapist program. "I was skeptical at first," she said. "Occupational therapy isn't something people in the United States understand, so going to another country, where medical service is far behind what we have ..." Higgins, who has a bachelor's and master's degree from Tufts University, and her two colleagues spent three 11-hour days at the clinic, seeing a total of about 90 patients. Most were children, and about three-quarters of them suffered from cerebral palsy. The therapists also saw children with spinal bifida, autism, selective mutism and other birth defects. There also were older children and adults, including a woman who had a brain tumor removed, a man who suffered from polio as a child, and a man who fell at work and suffered a spinal cord injury. Most of the clinic's patients go there two times per week. The clinic is, Higgins said, pretty well set up with proper equipment. But it is staffed with therapy aides, most of whom undergo a six-month certification course in Mexico City and are unable to give any patient much individual attention. "The parents do the therapy with them, and the dedication of these families is (amazing)," Higgins said. "The villa is in the middle of nowhere, and these families will walk their kids there. It snowed our second day, and because it never snows, you'd think the place would shut down. People still came. These parents will do whatever they possibly can to get their kids seen." Being able to help, even for a small amount of time, was inspiring and heartbreaking. "There are so many people there (who need help)," she said. "You hear these stories, and then you see it." According to statistics the clinic provided Higgins, Juarez, Mexico has a population of 1.2 million in a city the size of Rhode Island. About 1.4 percent of its citizens are disabled; one in 10 people born in Mexico is born with a disability. According to the World Health Organization's Web site, Mexico has an average child mortality rate of 28 per 1,000 children. The United States has an average rate of 7.5 deaths per 1,000. Eager to keep helping, Higgins plans a return trip in July and has begun recruiting a larger team. She and other OT professors also plan to bring a couple students. Higgins also has enlisted her father, who is in construction, to build a few step-stools and some other equipment for the clinic. "This was my first type of humanitarian trip, and I came back on an emotional high," she said. REBECCA KEISTER can be reached at 508-236-0336 or at rkeister@thesunchronicle.com.