Clinic Update

We are finding a lot of malnourished babies that need to be put on formula.  Either the mother has lost her milk altogether or as in most cases she just doesn’t have enough to cause her baby to flourish.  Our area is in drought and famine.  This affects the health of everyone but most easily affect these little ones.  We are currently helping 14 different babies and committing to giving them what they need each month to help them to recuperate to a healthy level.  Some of our teams bring down powdered formula and we have some donations that come in sporadically.  It is like “powdered gold” to us and we have seen the difference that it makes to cause these babies to thrive.  If you can help us with the donation of any baby powdered milk formula, please communicate with our US office by calling (810)385-4338  or write by email to nancy@servantministries.net.

 

Below is our new table that reflects the number of patients that we have served over the last year and to date over our 5 years of operation.

 

  

 

PATIENT TALLY FROM MAY 2009 - APRIL 2010
VISITS	NUMBER OF PATIENTS	TOTAL VISITS
One time visit	589	589
Repeated second visit	121	242
Repeated third visit	57	171
Repeated fourth visit	14	56
Repeated fifth visit	9	45
Repeated sixth visit	6	36
Repeated seventh visit	3	21
Repeated eighth visit	1	8
Repeated tenth visit	2	20
Repeated thirteenth visit	1	13
Repeated sixteenth visit	1	16
TOTALS	804	1217
Visits from April 2004-April 2005	1,603	2,224
Visits from April 2005-April 2006	1,147	1,564
Visits from April 2006-April 2007	1,436	1,875
Visits from April 2007-April 2008	976	1,366
Visits from April 2008-April 2009	670	1,024
To Date:	6636	9270

 

 

Medical Clinic

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 3 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 December of 2009 we dedicated a new clinic building to house our medical/dental clinic.  It has much larger exam rooms for both medical and dental consultations plus 2 bathrooms, a very large reception/store area and nicer ambiance.  The surrounding security wall was brought up to full height.  Our next construction for the clinic will be to build a duo storage rooms to house our meds and store inventory plus an area to start our own lab. If you are interested in helping, please communicate with our US office by calling (810)385-4338 or writing an email to nancy@servantministries.net.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dental Update

 

We lost the services of the local dentist who had been helping us at our ministry clinic.  She has her own clinic which is growing in number of people she takes care of and doesn’t feel that she can give the time to cover our clinic anymore.  This left us in a situation that we wanted to change.  We especially want to continue our dental services for our Embrace children.  We have seen a huge difference in the children’s oral health as we have made cleaning, filling and extractions be available to them as no cost to them at all.  We don’t want to lose our momentum of that. 
In July, Dr. Esau Morales came to cover our “third Saturday” of the month, which is when two of our Embrace groups have their monthly meeting.  We try to make it easy for the families to come down the mountain only once a month to attend the meeting, receive their food benefits and also have the opportunity to go to the clinic for either medical or dental needs.  Dr. Morales is from Chiquimula and is a Christian that attends the Amigo (or Friends) Church there.  He has committed to cover the third Saturday for us each month so it will be the same doctor that these approximately 80-100 children will become comfortable with and seek their dental needs with.  We are so happy to have him come on board to be a blessing to our “Embrace kids”!
We have a line on another dentist who has verbally committed to cover our “second Saturday” of the month, which is when our other two groups of Embrace children attend.  We hope to have the confirmation and the first participation of her to report back to you next month.  We may try to cover other Saturdays as well, but our priority for the moment is making sure that we give good dental care to our sponsored children that are under the Embrace program.

 

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In January 2008 we expanded our dental services.  We had been offering extractions since November 2007.  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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The following table shows the activity of our “Dental Services” that have been given from our start up date in October 2007 through the end of 2008.  Remember that the dentist is only working on Saturdays, so we believe that we have been able to reach a lot of people through this outreach at the ministry’s clinic.

 

DENTAL SERVICES RENDERED FROM JANUARY 2009 THRU DECEMBER 2009
NAME	TOTALS
# OF PATIENTS	295
EXTRACTIONS	93
CLEANINGS	97
FILLINGS	247