UPCOMING MEDICAL BRIGADE TO LA MOSQUITIA ON APRIL 27-MAY 5

When you go to a pharmacy to fill a prescription written by your health care provider, it's a routine. The doctor has given you a piece of paper with the name of the medication and its strength, how often you are to take it, and the amount for the pharmacist to give you. Simple. The only real decision is where you choose to get the prescription filled. Every busy street corner has a drug store, sometimes "mom and pop" shops where you've known the man behind the counter for years and sometime a mega-store where you can buy anything from frozen foods to auto parts while they count out your pills. If you take it to one store the cost may be $4.00, at another the same medication will cost more. You pay with cash, or check or credit card or just a co-pay, and your out the door and on your way to feeling better.

A healthy child in Limonales

Imagine now that you live in a village on the beach in eastern Honduras or 40 miles up a river in the rain forest, and your child is ill. Something common in that area, like worms or malaria or asthma. You'd take her to the doctor, right? First, the scenario is rather unrealistic in the first place. There is no doctor in the village to have visited, and if there was, you probably didn't have the few dollars he would charge for his consultation. So, lets make believe that you did see the doctor. He writes a prescription just like in the U.S. Now what? If you are lucky enough to live in or near a village with a National Health Care facility, you might be able to get the medication there almost for free. That is if they have any medicine. There are pharmacies in Honduras and you can buy any medication you want, even without a prescription. If you are vomiting you can buy something to stop it.... not in a neat pill bottle, but by the single pill. All for cash. No money.... no medicine. If the doctor you saw prescribes an antibiotic for Susie's infection, you have to find someone that is selling it, and you must be able to afford it.

Dr. Ben Coplan examines a child in Ciriboya

You make the long trip to a pharmacy . You have brought all the cash you could scrape together and you are hoping you can afford what the doctor says your child needs. You had enough money and you go back to you village and give the medicine to your child. All is well. Imagine if any one of these steps was impossible to accomplish. You pray your child gets better in time.

There are few places where people can go to be treated at no cost and receive free medication. The hospital in Ciriboya is one of note, as is the clinic in Belaire. There are more places where the patient is charged a token fee which is usually overlooked. The question of medication availability still is a major hurdle to good and consistent health care.

As we plan our mission trip to La Moskitia in April, we receive word that there are no medicines at the Garifuna hospital in Ciriboya. Despite 24 hour physician coverage, there is no medication there to treat illness. Besides acquiring enough medications to treat the hundreds of patients we will see in our clinics in La Moskita, AHMEN and CHIMES have taken on the added burden of helping to stock the pharmacies at Ciriboya and several other health care facilities for the poor in Honduras. This requires a phenomenal amount of money to buy all the medicines. What is not purchased outright is obtained at reduced cost from several faith based organizations. Sometimes, we are lucky enough to receive donations from large companies and foundations, but it requires much work applying for grants and filling out applications. This year we were blessed with some rather large cash donations from friends of AHMEN and CHIMES. Selecting, and paying for, all the medications for a mission trip is a major undertaking. We bring many thousands of dollars of medication to Honduras yearly. All of it is freely given to the poor and to those that care for the poor.

A portion of our pharmacy in a classroom in Las Marias

The end result is that this April we will bring to Honduras roughly three to four times the amount of medications we expect to use in our clinics. The rest will be give to local health care facilities to continue free care after we leave.

Back down the Rio Plátano from Las Marias

Written by Bruce McFadden

Leader, mission team to La Mosquitia

Visit to Casa Cielo Orphanage

At the end of January we visited the Casa Cielo Orphanage (Heaven's Home) http://casaderoc.org/www.casaderoc.org/Home.html  just outside La Ceiba where 24 children from newborn to 6 years old live in the home of Leonard and Marie Jones.  We met them and some of the children last year during a medical brigade and we were greatly impressed by both them and the children and we wanted to see first hand how God was using them so that so these little children could have a real home.

The home

Despite so many little children running about, we saw a very well organized, loving and God centered home.  All the children have been taught to speak English as well as Spanish and can even recite Bible verses in both languages.

The school

The school is right across the street from their house.  They need English speaking teachers.  They are praying for a single girl or boy or a young couple that would come and stay for one school year.  They have acquired a large tract of land nearby where they plan to build the permanent orphanage.  They also need help for that.  See pictures.

Property where orphanage is to be built

Come play with me!

A helper holds a girl who's blind from birth

The newborn baby

Everyone helps feed the babies

Playmates

Playroom 

Playroom 

Girls' room 

Girls' room 

    

Boys' room 

Boys' room

Perfectly lined up

A well organized closet

Vandalism at the Public School!

The public school on Utila, named Centro de Educacion Basica Republica de Honduras was not be able to open as scheduled for the new school year because it was vandalized (Honduran public schools start in early February and end in early November.)

Most of the internal wiring at the school was stolen.  The computer room was broken into and all the external cables of the computers - CPU, monitors, keyboards, mouses, power boxes, etc. - were also cut off and stolen.  Boxes of unopened equipment were destroyed.

This act of vandalism was reported to the authorities and a couple of young men were arrested.  Despite to the lack of electricity and running water the school managed to open this past Monday.  The teachers raised 300 Lempiras ($15) to clean three classrooms.  The local community raised funds to clean the rest of the classrooms, but there is still much to be done.

In the meantime a merchant in Utila, Richard del Olmo donated enough wire to at least begin the task of rewiring in the school.  We, together with Patrick Flynn and his wife Nelly, his sister Hannah and her husband, Steve were able to buy some cable, from La Ceiba, to add cable, plugs and USB ports to the computers which are about 10 years old.  

We are continuing to request funds to complete this job.  AHMEN has already collected $500 and will send rolls of wiring and school supplies in the container that they send to Honduras every April.

As you can see in the pictures published in the tab for Utila Public School, the school is in deplorable condition and this act of vandalism made it worse.  See pictures below.

CUT CABLES

Back of monitor

CPUs

Power boxes

Mice (or mouses?)

       

January Medical Brigade

She's itching all over

Got her first pair of reading glasses

We had our first medical brigade of the year with AHMEN at Belaire, Jutiapa on January 26 - February 3.  After making four trips to transport supplies from La Ceiba to Belaire (one hour each way) with a rented truck, the team was ready to see patients.

A young Honduran doctor, Delmer Montoya, served with our medical brigade this year.  Following are some of his pictures and excerpts of his experience.

Dr. Delmer Montoya

Child with malnutrition

"There is a lot of children with malnutrition and their complications.  Was so sad to see children 6 years old who look like they has 3. I saw some critical cases (3) on my first day of clinics. I think that the ignorance the biggest problem.  For example you can give them medicine against parasites and you can tell them that they have to drink boiled or chlorinated water, but they dont do it, all the effort will no have any effect.  And as you know thats a cycle."

Child with fungus

"The main illness in here is FUNGUS, 95% of people has it in combination with other pathologys."

Man with destroyed septum

"Yesterday we saw some different kinds of diseases, for example came an old man with problems in his nose, the septum was destroyed, perhaps could be cancer."
"We saw a woman with ectopic pregnancy, childrens with impetigo, malnutrition, parasites, a lot of people with fungus, a girl with a big burn over the whole torax and neck.  I saw 2 womans hitted, I think could be domestic violence.  We saw too a girl with a mass, perhaps it could be a lynphoma."

People live in stick & mud houses

"During one afternoon we went to Berlin, a community over the mountains forgotten for everybody. Malnutrition is without any doubt the biggest problem there.  Almost all the children are in a severe condition."

_________________

I think I'll start eating the bag

 The organization STOP HUNGER NOW supplied 114 boxes of a mixture of dried rice and soy beans for the communities mentioned above.  Each box contained 16 packages each of which provides a completely balanced meal for 6 children.

Ready for distribution