October Update October is over! And we had no cutie pies dressed up marching around singing “Queremos Halloween!” :( We´ve all had to sacrifice a lot this year, but there will come a time again when we can celebrate all of our favorite holidays together. This holiday season it is imperative we continue to be vigilant and have patience. Covid19 has not disappeared in our sweet town, it's still out there. You maybe can't see it but us healthcare professionals are warning you it is there and it is waiting for you to have big holiday parties so it can spread and spread and spread. I know it's been almost a year, but it's just one Holiday season. Collectively, our sacrifices will continue to keep the Covid19 cases low in our neighborhood, so our community stays safe. We've done well so far, let's keep staying strong and staying positive and we will get through this.
In other news, our rural health program has begun in El Cardonal. After several days of training with our staff, we are excited to bring our services on a regular basis to this community. Access to healthcare has been an obstacle in El Cardonal for many years. The town has a “casa de salud” but there are no medical professionals who attend patients. Our mobile tablet, called GALE, donated by 19Labs (for our nurses reading, note: Florence 19GALE), uses medical devices connected via bluetooth to do a full head to toe assessment virtually, with a physician at another location reading the vital signs and video chatting with the patient.
We think GALE is so cool and are really excited to move forward with our project. We are extremely grateful to 19labs for their donation. However, we will need funds to keep the program running. We installed a satellite dish to improve wifi connection so the tele-medicine experience is high quality, however the internet service is very expensive. We will write a grant asking for funds and probably even write a publication about our experience. The device is really innovative and the project is going to be very impactful to the community.
Regarding our clinic, Brittany and Dra. Valeria celebrated birthdays this month. Dr. Christopher Gonzalez covered Dra. Valeria during her vacations and will be joining our team in December. We are very excited to have another doctor on our team. We ordered 40 dosis of influenza vaccines. They are much more expensive this year than previous years. In order to reserve your vaccine you need to send us an email AND pay partially or fully up front. The vaccines will then be scheduled and you can receive your shot by driving up to our clinic without leaving your car.
In honor of breast cancer awareness month, Dra. Ileana helped us offer a significant discount on breast ultrasounds. Anytime you want to schedule an ultrasound, just call us: 624-124-8203 If you'd like to help support our projects for providing quality, affordable, and accessible healthcare to the East Cape community, consider donating via eastcapehealthcenter.org/donate
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Thank you so much for your support!