Pay It Forward
Remember that sweet movie with Hayley Joel Osmund, Helen Hunt and his teacher, Kevin Spacey? Haley realizes he can change the world by doing a favor for one person, who agrees to pay the favor forward by helping someone else, instead of paying the person back.
The idea is simple and the movie is great. Small actions can have an enormous impact. When you choose to use the services at our Health Center, you are paying it forward.
Sometimes our prices may seem high. Sometimes our prices may seem low. As a non-profit we don't actually have prices. If you have seen our receipts or “notas de venta”, all purchases are labeled “Cuota de recuperacion” or “Recovery fee”. That's because you are actually paying to recover the costs of running the clinic, paying employees, and helping us grow the clinic to reach more people. Most importantly, our recovery fees help us lower the price of fees to the locals and people who need it most.
Here are some new patients this month, their names have been changed for privacy reasons:
A: is a virtually homeless type II diabetic who is working on the street doing what he can for food and clothing. He is a petite, chatty, and polite gentleman who has been coming regularly to check his blood sugar levels. He knows he is diabetic but doesn´t have money for the medications. When he first consulted with Dr. Christopher, his blood sugar levels were over 600. We donated Metformin and other oral medications to avoid insulin if possible. Over a few weeks Dr. Christopher decided to bring his sugar down slowly using a combination of oral medications and now insulin to help control his hyperglycemia. He is one of 4 people in the community enrolled in our diabetes control program.
B: is a 7 year old boy who came in his mothers arms to the clinic in the middle of a grand mal seizure. It was his first seizure and his family was rightly terrified. He was playing hide and go seek one minute and the next he was on the floor unconscious and shaking. We helped stabilize him and provide transport to La Paz with the proteccion civil ambulance.
Now that he has completed his tests in La Paz we decided to fulfil our promise to take care of him. The family’s socioeconomic form has a great impact on how we determine how much we can offer. The best use of our help is with the cost of medications needed to avoid any further future out of control seizures. We have 6 others in the East Cape with seizure control, this includes not only the medication but the tests used to determine the control levels of meds.
C: is a 27 day old baby who came to our clinic because his mom was concerned by his vomiting. After a quick evaluation found to be extremely malnourished and dehydrated. After a phone conversation with Dr. Manuel from Centro de Salud who treated the baby a week ago, it was evident the baby had a congenital abnormality with a stomach blockage. We paid the gas to get the Civil Protection ambulance to take the child and his parents heading to Salvatierra in La Paz for evaluation and emergency surgery for pyloric stenosis. The mother called 2 days later to thank us for expediting the process to get the operation he needed to save his little life. Like all our patients who receive a reduced recovery fee, we examined the parent´s socioeconomic background so they can receive follow-up treatment here at the Health Center. He is currently recovering from surgery.
D: came to the clinic after he suffered third degree electrical burns over 60% of his body in December. He came to the clinic because the wounds on his chest were not healing appropriately. We dressed his wounds and helped him pay for the non-adherent gauze that will help his burns heal. He needs silver sulfadiazine cream which is only sold in bulk to hospitals. Since he cannot work and his wife is his primary care giver, they do not have the means to pay for wound care supplies and treatment. We have been helping him pay for these supplies and providing him medical support in his recovery.
Helping these individuals in our community is only made possible because you continually pay it forward by choosing our services. Our mission is to always look for ways we can help our community. Promoting science and public health safety is an important way we are caring for our community.
Vaccine registration 50+ people pre-registered on the government´s covid19 website. Anyone with permanent or temporary residency has a CURP. You can sign up online: mivacuna.salud.gob.mxor bring your residency card to the clinic and Brittany will sign you up. The government plans to have everyone over 60 vaccinated by the end of April and the next group of 40-59-year-olds will begin once the over 60 group is finished. We believe the vaccine used here in Los Barriles will probably be AstraZeneca or Sinovac because we do not have an ultra-cold freezer to hold the pfizer vaccine in Los Barriles.
The cities like La Paz and Los Cabos will get the Pfizer vaccine. The vaccination site in Los Barriles will be next to the Centro de Salud and the government health care workers will be in charge of calling you for your appointment and distributing the vaccine.
We perform an average of 30-50 covid tests per day, mostly to people traveling to the US...
We try to do all testing between 9am-11am and 2-3pm in the afternoon. It is recommended to make an appointment, especially for groups. It seems that local transmission of COVID19 has slowed down for now. We still have a few cases per week. Please understand that at this point no locals in our community have been vaccinated and the vaccination campaign in Mexico will continue to move slowly. None of our employees have been vaccinated. We probably won't get vaccinated until after the summer.
Our telemedicine program GALE is going to be rolling out in Cabo Pulmo soon. The delegado from La Ribera and Cabo Pulmo came to el Cardonal to see the process. In February we celebrated Dentists Day and Charlene´s birthday. Dra. Miranda the gynecologist visited and Dr. Lopez the plastic surgeon came to remove some patient´s lumps and bumps.
Happy dentists day to Dra. Veronica Touchman and Dr. Samir Ganelon
