|
We believe that the only way for the poor that we serve, to ever
improve their standard of living and way of life on a long term
basis, is through improved health care and education. Therefore,
all funds that are donated or that come from our personal
finances, except for our living expenses, go to some area of
medical care or education.
MEDICAL TEAMS-We love to have Medical Teams come to the Boca
Costa. The experience that the teams have is worth the effort.
There are areas in need of medical care that we cannot get to
because there are only two of us and the need is so great. Most
teams come for one week. We try to pick two villages that we haven't been to recently and have the team work in one of the villages for 3 days and the other 2 days. Both of us try to always work with the teams.
 The
minimum size needed to come as a team is one doctor and two/three
support people. It is good if at least one of the support people
has some medical background. The ideal team is two/three doctors
and a total team of ten or less. The clinics are very basic and we
would expect to see about 30-40 people per doctor per day. The
villages where we go mostly speak Quiche. We hire translators for
Quiche/Spanish at no cost to the teams. Any Spanish/English
translators will be paid for by the team (see budget page). We do the
advertising and the setup (with your help) for the clinics.
 MEDICINE---Medicine is the lifeblood of the clinics. We require that all teams bring enough medicines to supply their clinics and any medicine left over is donated to Boca Costa Medical Mission for use in the regular clinics. Look at the "MEDICAL FORMULARY" tab for the list of needed medicines, how and where to get them and the rules for transporting the medicines.
 NAN 1----We always have a few babies that need formula because the mother cannot breast feed or the mother has died during child birth. The formula that we purchase here is made by Nestles and is call 'NAN 1', for the babies first year. A can of formula costs about $18.00 plus, here in Guatemala, and lasts about 2 weeks. We have about 10-15 babies on the program at any one time. This is a very good program in that it does save lives. Most of the babies we put on the program would not live without the formula.
 SURGICAL PROGRAM---We have built a working relationship with a private hospital in Mazatenango that is open 24/7 and also receives surgical teams from the U.S. 2-4 times per year. We refer 1-2 patients per month to the hospital. Our patients have very little so we support their hospital stay, testing, surgery and medicine. We also have built a relationship recently with a jungle hospital (Hospital Santa Fe). We also refer patients there and have US surgeons coming to that hospital 2-3 times per year. We get a very good rate from these hospitals but the cost is still about $250-300 per patient.
Mission Opportunities page 2
|
|
