Dear Supporters of the Roberto Clemente-Santa Ana Health Clinic,
In 2013, the Clinic and surrounding communities received more support than ever from your donations and our expanding services.
We enhanced our volunteer program to include many outreach educational initiatives, including classes on dental hygiene, hand washing and how to prevent parasites. We provided educational outreach programs on contraception, diabetes, and healthy living.
To handle the expansion, during 2013, we hired three new doctors to cover our new 24/7 services. Our volunteer coordinator managed double the amount of volunteers compared to 2012: 67, mostly from the US, Canada and the UK. Most were medical professionals and pre-med or health care students.
We also continue to assess the various systems that could potentially create a community clean-water treatment system. This is a huge need at both at the Clinic and in growing Limón II, where outdoor latrines are frequently built too close to open wells, and where a contaminated well is the norm, not the exception. We are also assessing water filters for the community. We have been granted permission from the nearby development of Rancho Santana to use water from their well system to make this plan a reality.
Our Clinic continues to receive positive feedback from the surrounding communities, especially for the January 2013 health fair with participation from the Ministry of Health and including a mobile dental clinic. Both local residents and visitors continue to appreciate and greatly need this ambulance service as well as the 24/7 care, ultrasound exams, lab testing services and the expanded pharmacy. Many people now have access to medicines they could never access before, or that they previously traveled hours to find.
Since we started in 2003, the Clinic has become so much more than we had ever imagined and is now an even bigger responsibility requiring greater funds. We get numerous testimonials from the thousands of residents and visitors whose lives we have saved and improved with emergency and ongoing care. Furthermore, we are in our third year of bringing hundreds of patients to the local annual Healthcare Fair to meet with local medical professionals and
US specialists.
We’ve recently updated our wish list for the Clinic on our website… Please help us bring these important items down to Nicaragua by clicking here http://www.nicaclinic.org/about-us/our-top-ten-needs. This annual report highlights the successes and challenges our clinical team addressed in 2013, while continuing to provide excellent and much-needed primary care, preventative medicine, emergency care and education to residents and visitors.
Sincerely,
Julia C. Guth
Chair of the Board
To download the full report please click here.