Waste Not

Hi all, I'm home, the trip is over, but inside of me, its still very much alive.
our last day in Guatemala, a few of us had the opportunity to visit another project of the Guatemalan Pediatric Foundation: a clinic and meal center in Asentamiento La Paz, one of 16 neighborhoods built on the City landfill, where many residents eke out a living by sifting through the garbage and selling anything possibly recyclable.

at this clinic I met an amazing woman, Who met us at the door introducing herself only as Martha.  She is Dra. Martha Julia Velasquez Herrarte, a family physician with specialty in adolescent medicine who has been the main physician at this clinic for 9 years.  she sees 40 patients per day, and the meal center serves 250 children two meals and a snack per day, with the only requirement that they stay in school, and bring their homework to the snack time in the afternoon.

 The clinic with the Guatemalan Pediatric Foundation Logo painted on the outside

 Dra. Martha and I

 Mural in the center which feeds 250 children from the neighborhood per day

 to the right of superman is a thank you letter made for Dr. Martha from patients. it is homemade paper that was made from paper found in the dump and adorned in plastic flowers, also from the dump

 A child with Asthma receiving a breathing treatment.

A family awaiting their visit with the doctor



When I spoke with Dr. Velasquez about the needs for the clinic she mentioned the following:

Tubing for the nebulizer machine (being used by the child in the picture above). For perspective, our clinic alone throws out about 10 of these masks and tube sets a week. at this clinic, they resterilize them until they fall apart.
an instrument used to examine ears, nose and throat (you will recognize this hanging on the wall in most doctor's offices) her's was ancient and held together with tape.
Stethoscopes
Surgical instruments for basic in office procedures. (they have re-sterilized theirs so much that they have lost their sharp edge).

I'd like to form a sister clinic relationship with this clinic and my own, as we do similar works in many ways. our resources here are so vast. in the operating room after the first day of surgery, the Guatemalan OR nurses approached me and asked if we could save for them all the unused clean material from the surgeries (gauze, plastic containers, etc). We routinely throw such things away, but they are used to re-sterilizing them for future use.

Stay tuned for ways you can help with this sister-clinic idea.

Thanks for reading!