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Update on Dental Services Servant Ministries began a medical clinic in April of 2004. We saw the need to provide medical care at affordable prices to the people from the mountain villages. There are local health departments that provide free medical attention, but for the most part they don’t have the medicine that is needed to treat the people. Putting a name on their condition without providing the means to alleviate it is of little use. People from the mountain villages are also apprehensive about going to the local health departments. Situations have improved in recent years, but in the past there were real “caste issues” between seeing a patient from the town and seeing one from the mountain village, who are from more pure Mayan descent. We try to treat each patient that comes to our clinic with the respect and love of God that they deserve!
Servant Ministries hosts short term medical teams that come and do outreaches in the remote mountain villages, taking the clinics to the people for one day outreaches. They leave behind their left over meds and this is what allows us to operate the on-going medical clinic for the ministry. Our current schedule is to be open 5 days a week. We have a nurse who operates the clinic and she deals with all of the chronic on-going health issues and we stock the necessary meds to help the people. We are able to offer testing for glucose, breathing treatments and coordinate with a lab when lab tests are necessary.
Also, Ana, our nurse, is a Christian and can many times offer encouragement, counsel and prayer to our patients and they leave having been treated for the “whole person”. The people pay a minimal fee (equivalent to 2 hours of work at minimum wage) for their consultation with the nurse. This helps to pay for the nurse and receptionist’s wages. Then the meds are given without cost. We run a small store at the clinic as well, to help offset the costs of the clinic and to keep fees charged to a minimum.
As of October of 2007, we began to offer dental service at the clinic as well. We have a local dentist come every Saturday who does extractions, cleanings and fillings at cost. We have seen a tremendous response to this outreach and have appointments made usually for up to 2 months in advance. People have had chronic teeth problems, many times for years, and it is a real blessing to be able to give them a pain free mouth and to help teach them oral hygiene. |
In the future there are plans to build a more formal and complete clinic that will include medical, optical and dental care, a pharmacy, laboratory and eventually an in-patient recovery center for malnourished children. In 2007 we were able to raise up the wall to surround this future compound to about 2/3 of its height.
Dental Update: In January we expanded our dental services. We had been offering extractions since November. In January we began doing fillings and cleanings! The people are really responding to these outreaches. Rachel, our new dentist, has been gracious enough to bring her own equipment that we are lacking to be able to offer these new services….until we are able to buy our own. The people are really responding to these new services. We are offering them at half or less than the normal on-going local prices, trying to basically just cover our costs. We have appointments made for over 2 months in advance, filling about 2/3 of our appointments and leaving a few open for “walk ins”.
Embrace is covering the dental benefits for the sponsored children and they are really taking advantage of it. World Vision has also sent us some of their children to see. Most of these people have never had dental care, especially outside of doing an extraction once a tooth gets to a point that there is no other alternative. We are trying to do oral hygiene training and teach the people how to properly care for their teeth and to have regular checkups. Every patient is receiving a free toothbrush. What a blessing to be able to offer these services to the people.
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If you have interest in doing a dental or medical clinic, you can contact either: Tamie Barber at servantministries1@yahoo.com or Nancy Sheldon at nsheldon1@gmail.com |