On a mission

Beverly chiropractor Deborah Mager has traveled around the world to bring relief to people in need

When you hear that someone is headed to a prison in El Salvador, you’d have to assume it’s not a good story. But I promise you, this one is.

That’s because the story is about Dr. Deborah Mager, a longtime chiropractor in Beverly. For the last 15 years she has gone on medical missions to countries all over the world, literally laying her hands on some of the world’s most impoverished people to relieve them of their pain.

To date, Mager has been on 23 missions to 21 countries, often in remote places with no plumbing or electricity. She’s slept in a tent in Mozambique, canoed to islands in the Philippines, been escorted by SWAT teams with AK-47’s in Niger.

But she’s never had a trip quite like the one to El Salvador. Mager travels with Hand of Hope, a nonprofit ministry based in Missouri. Two weeks ago the Beverly native went with a group of 14 doctors, dentists and optometrists to La Esperanza, a prison in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.

Dr. Mager treating a man in a prison in El Salvador. Photos courtesy of Dr. Mager.

La Esperanza — “Hope” in Spanish — is a huge complex that houses over 30,000 prisoners. (No, it’s not the notorious prison you’ve heard about in the news where the Trump administration has deported alleged gang members.) Mager said many of the prisoners are gang members, although El Salvador has been operating under martial law for years with little if any due process, according to a report by the U.S. State Department. One of the prisoners happened to be the country’s former president, Mauricio Funes, who in 2023 was sentenced to 14 years for negotiating with gangs during his administration. Mager and her group actually saw Funes, carrying a mop on his prison duty.

Mager and the other medical providers set up in a courtyard in the prison. Over two 10-hour days, Mager treated a total of 340 men who were sent to her with various ailments. She would attend to each patient for about three minutes, giving them deep massages and manipulating their joints with her hands. Mager said the men were mostly young, in their 20s and 30s, and generally in good health, although some of them had gunshot and/or stab wounds.

As she worked on them, Mager said the prisoners would hear the sound of a bone being adjusted, “scream in delight,” and jump off the table and give her a hug.

“There is a sense of instantaneous relief,” she said.

Mager said she never felt unsafe during her time in El Salvador. (She stayed in a Holiday Inn.) When she was there on a mission trip 10 years ago, she said the streets were full of gangs. Shopping malls and houses were covered with barbed wire for protection. Under a new president, many of the gang members have been rounded up and put in overcrowded prisons.

Mager said the prison she visited was clean and orderly, with armed guards everywhere. She spoke with her patients in her limited Spanish, and had a translator alongside at all times.

Mager, who is 74, was on her feet almost the whole time, with occasional breaks for snacks. “I’m a marathon runner,” she said. “I’m used to the heat.”

Dr. Mager, clockwise from top left, in Mozambique, the Phillipines, South Africa and Niger.

The Hand of Hope team, with help from local doctors and dentists, treated 5,000 prisoners over the two days. The optometrist station was next to Mager, and she said prisoners would shout with joy when they were given eyeglasses and could suddenly read. Other treatments were necessary but not so joyous — hundreds of prisoners had their rotting teeth pulled.

As Mager was leaving the prison at the end of the day, she walked by the kitchen and some of the prisoners she had treated gave her a round of applause.

“It was one of the most electrifying and satisfying missions I’ve ever been on,” she told me.

Mager said she started going on medical missions about 15 years ago, after tiring of African safaris (she’s been on 10). On one of her first missions, to Ethiopia, she saw a local doctor revive a sick baby by swinging her around by the feet and dropping sugar water in her mouth.

“By the end I said, ‘I’m all in,’” she told me. “That was 20 missions ago.”

On one trip, to India, Mager treated an old woman who was regarded as an “untouchable” in the country’s caste system. The woman was bent over from age, so Mager picked her up and put her on the table to give her a massage. When Mager was done, the woman got down on her knees and kissed Mager’s feet.

“That’s why I go,” she said.

“I have learned to be grateful. When I start to feel that life is pressing in on me, I go on a mission trip.”

Mager said she has been single for her whole life and never had children, so these trips are where she devotes her energy. “This is my mission,” she said.

She’s already signed up for her next one — back to El Salvador in March.

Dr. Deborah Mager in front of her office in Beverly.