The other Maradona

We love  Diego  or we hate him, but we all know him well. However, there is another  Maradona , a previous Maradona, who will surely have yelled some Diego goal, but that was a real example of life, although much lower profile. It's time we all met  Esteban Laureano Maradona.  

Esteban Maradona was born on July 4, 1895 in Esperanza, province of Santa Fe, into an affluent family. He later studied  medicine  in Buenos Aires and then set up his own office. Dr. Maradona's life could have continued like this, comfortable and with a good pass, but luckily he had other motivations. His first humanitarian work led him to  the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia , in which he provided his medical services to both sides, because, according to him, “pain has no borders.” After the conflict, he decided to return to Argentina. His first destiny was to be Tucumán, where he would meet his brother again. But fortune, luck or chance wanted me to make a stop earlier.  A stop that lasted 51 years . While traveling by train, Maradona was alerted that, in a small town called  Estanislao del Campo , a woman parturient needed her help. Without hesitation, he descended from the vehicle, knowing that the next one would pass only three or four days later. The doctor reached a small native community, which had no medical services, running water or electricity. He decided to settle there and became  a doctor of poor and  aboriginal people  .

He wasn't in his plans, or maybe he did, I just didn't know it yet. There he managed to eradicate deadly diseases such as leprosy, tuberculosis and syphilis, and won the respect of the entire village. However, in addition to providing medical service, Maradona provided economic, cultural and social assistance. He founded a school in which he was a teacher, and also studied the geography and fauna of the place. He never paid for his work. According to his words:  “It is said that living in austerity, humbly and severally means renouncing oneself. Actually, it is to be realized entirely as a man in the magnificent dimension for which he was created.  ”

Dr. Maradona resided in that village until his 90 years, when — in 1986 — due to his poor health, he had to move to  Rosario , where he lived with a nephew until his death, nine years. Then, does anyone remember the Maradona who was just kicking the ball?

 4th of July: National Day of Rural Physician 

From 2001 onwards, the 4th of July was established as the  National Day of the Rural Physician  in commemoration of the birth of Dr. Esteban Laureano Maradona,  “in memory of his exemplary life, which joins that of all Argentine rural doctors whose anonymous stories we have hide their names and their unveils”  (in the words of the accession of the Senate of the Nation).

In an interview he was given a year before his death, Dr. Maradona said:  “I think that death does not exist, only death can be in the mineral kingdom, whereas organic death becomes for me a transformation nothing else, it is a transformation of life; one's life is one's life transformation. is transformed into another's life. The spirit is eternal, the spirit is always in effect, and as the years pass that validity becomes stronger, when the person in life has fulfilled a sacred and useful mission.”  We can say then that it was fulfilled if vision: your spirit will always be present in all the doctors who sacrifice day by day to care for people in the worst conditions and in the most inhospitable places.