CAMOTAN CLINIC
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Mission Statement
All lives have the right to health care
About This Cause
We are a combination of American and Guatemalan doctors, dentists and pharmacists providing healthcare to a severely underserved population of people in rural Guatemala. We have been operating almost 5 years and have grown our services even during these challenging times. We partner with an obstetrics non profit (Saving Mothers), Colgate Palmolive, water purification non profits (Living Waters of the World) and many others. We also partner with many Guatemalan non profits (fundacion Castillo Cordova and several others). We have a fully functioning medical clinic that is open Monday through Friday through which we deploy our programs. Our staff is supported by regular groups of physicians and dentists from the United States (approximately every 6 weeks) who come work alongside their Guatemalan counterparts. When we have large groups of medical professionals, we run mobile clinics high in the mountains above the clinic in Camotan. It is on these trips that we get to meet people who have dire needs; in some of the worst poverty in the Western Hemisphere. These indigenous peoples live subsistence farming but due to many factors including Climate Change, their crops are becoming more and more unreliable. We have been supporting those who need food with food. Others have tremendous medical needs that the country of Guatemala simply cannot address. We work alongside the local health care centers (funded by the Guatemalan government but chronically in need of supplies, medications, etc) to reach these peoples. The people in these mountains cannot reach the town of Camotan: they live in huts, have virtually no connection to the outside world (some have obtained cell phones in the past few years) and have to means of transportation. For these people we send our nurses on motorcycles on a regular basis to check in on patients, make sure they are not starving and monitor improvements in their health. The town on Camotan is 4-5 hours from Guatemala City and a long drive from any other city (San Pedro Sula in Honduras is also 4-5 hours). Its distance from the closest international airport has kept it quite neglected by other NGOs and organizations. It is for this reason we chose to work here. Villagers in the town tend to have jobs and be in better health than the indigenous peoples living in the mountains. Nonetheless, they need good medical care too and we see many patients from the town who could not afford medications or medical care otherwise. The government clinic in town, as already mentioned, struggles just to get basic supplies like gloves and simple antibiotics. We give to this clinic often when we have any excess supplies and we have a working relationship with them. There are many stories on our website of ways we have leveraged physicians in Guatemala City (usually surgeons because we do not yet have surgical capacity here in our clinic) to get people the care they need. Just in the past couple of months, we have sent patients for complex eye surgery, hernia surgery and other treatments to Roosevelt hospital in Guatemala City. Our Guatemalan physicians and dentists have connections to get people specialist care they would never know how to otherwise access. We pay for transport, lodging and food for these patients (they would never be able to afford otherwise) and the surgeons will often do the surgeries for free. We see these partnerships growing and essential. In fact, in the past year we have been so amazed at how Guatemalans have begun working with us. They care deeply about their fellow countrymen and just want an avenue to help. It humbles us that they have chosen to work with us and we feel grateful for the friendships that are developing. As I write this, we have just completed our first annual fundraiser and gala for Camotan Clinic here in Denver where I live. Our dentist Dr. Toledo came to town and we had a very nice turn out with many doctors I work with expressing their desire to get involved. It is my vision that we continue to grow Camotan Clinic into a large collaboration of American and Guatemalan doctors, dentists, nurses and health professionals. I foresee American medical and dental residents doing month long rotations alongside Guatemalan dentists and doctors. I know a hospital in this area is badly needed and we would be so well received if we could grow this clinic. Additionally, great programs of public health are needed. Education, sanitation, crop management and much more is badly needed, especially in the mountain villages. I am encouraged by the growth we are seeing and feel that so much more is possible.