Newsletter - May, 2018
| May, 2018 Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me." Matt. 25:40 Published by the Society of the Good Shepherd, P. O. Box 122, Amberson, PA 17210. (717) 349-7033 |
Most of us don’t usually think of laying concrete blocks as a way of saving lives. However, when it comes to laying blocks to build a rural health clinic in a developing country like Honduras, the result can lead to dozens of lives saved every year, year after year.Throughout the country of Honduras, there are numerous rural health clinics—all of which provide healthcare to the local people at nominal fees. The Honduran government pays the salaries of the doctors and nurses at these clinics. However, it is up to the local rural community to come up with the funds to actually construct the clinic itself and to build any later additions to it. These rural health clinics are administered by local volunteer boards.
As small and under-equipped as these rural health clinics are, they are critically important—particularly in providing health care to small children and expectant mothers. Presently, the infant mortality rate in Honduras for infants under one year of age is 17.2 deaths for every 1,000 live births. That is nearly three times as high as the rate in the United States. The difference in the maternal mortality rate is even more dramatic. Nearly nine times as many mothers in Honduras die in childbirth or from pregnancy complications as they do in the United States! If it were not for the existence of the many rural health clinics in Honduras, both the infant mortality and maternal mortality rates would be dramatically higher than it already is.
Jardines is a small village of a few thousand people, located about 20 miles from Siguatepeque, Honduras. Although only a small village, Jardines operates one of these rural health clinics. The clinic in Jardines is merely 1800 square feet in size and is sparsely equipped. Despite its small size, it serves not only Jardines, but also more than 40 other nearby villages and communities. Last year, the local board of the Jardines clinic contacted the Society of the Good Shepherd requesting us to help them build an addition onto their small clinic. They had no funds to expand their facilities; yet, their clinic was too small to meet the number of patients who come there on a daily basis. Also, the clinic has no onsite laboratory facilities. This makes it difficult to quickly or accurately diagnose diseases and infections. Presently, the clinic has to take fluid samples and then send them off for diagnosis. With slow communications in Honduras, it can take days to get back needed results. Sometimes the time delay is fatal.
So in February of this year, a crew of brothers from the United States volunteered to travel down to the village of Jardines to begin work on a new addition to the present clinic. The addition will ultimately triple the size of the clinic. It will not only enable the clinic to treat more patients, but it will also house a laboratory and a dental clinic. The dental clinic will provide the only dental care most of the people in the area will ever receive. The upstairs of the new addition will house a secretary’s office, a simple lounge for the nurses to rest, and a meeting room where the doctors can confer with the nurses at the clinic. The funds to construct this new addition has totally come from donations from our readers.
The work crew that went down was almost entirely made up of young men ranging from ages 15 to 26. Originally, a couple of brothers over forty were going to head up the work crew. However, because of unexpected events, only one older brother was there to lead the crew. However, the young brothers worked diligently and were able to make considerable progress on the new addition. These brothers are planning a second trip to Honduras to complete the project. In the meantime, the Society has hired a crew of local Honduran workers to continue working on the project.
A group of young sisters also went down at the same time to paint a maternity ward for another nearby rural health clinic that the Society had built. A different team of brothers had traveled to Honduras on behalf of the Society to build that ward about twelve years ago. The maternity ward they built immediately brought a drop in maternal fatalities for the mothers in that area. In fact, for the past four straight years, that clinic has had no maternal fatalities at all! This new building project will no doubt save lives as well. Yes, sometimes laying concrete blocks can mean saving lives.
The Society of the Good Shepherd, P. O. Box 122, Amberson, PA 17210 • (717) 349-7033
Click on the following link if you would care to make a donation to the work in Honduras: Donations
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