Health For All

Health care for the people of Nueva Vida

Nueva Vida is a resettlement community of about 1,200 families who were moved permanently to two cow pastures in 1998 as a response to Hurricane Mitch's flooding. It is part of Ciudad Sandino, a city of about 150,000 people with 80% underemployment and an annual tax base of $2.30/person. Although the current government has made healthcare a priority, the nation has little money.

Health care was slowly becoming privatized because of World Bank/IMF demands, and for 16 years health care suffered. Now with the emphasis on health, public care is improving but is still grossly inadequate. What does this mean for people? It means that public doctors lack needed medicines and resources (including surgical needs and specialized education). Nicaraguans can't afford to buy their families needed medicines, lab work and surgical procedures. If they are fortunate enough to be employed, one medical treatment may still cost 1-4 days' worth of wages or more, which means money they will lack for basics such as food.

·        Infant mortality rate is 22 per 1,000. (UNICEF)

·        The maternal mortality rate is 77 per 100,000 births. (UNICEF)

·        The healthy life expectancy for a Nicaraguan woman is 74 years, and for a man it is only 70 years (World Health Organization [WHO]) which is a jump in the last two years of over 10 years life expectancy.

The total annual health expenditure is $254 per capita [WHO], with the public health expenditure only able to cover  approximately 20% of health care costs.  With the gross national income per capita at only $2,620, people are left spending much of their meager earnings in health care.  You can see how health services are obviously lacking, and you can imagine how such mortality rates affect parents.

From 1998 to 2001, the CDCA hosted volunteer medical brigades and then opened a temporary clinic. In January 2001 we opened a permanent clinic providing medical exams, a people's pharmacy, and wound care.

Our medical exams are currently performed by two part-time doctors, a general practitioner and a pediatrician. This year we hired our first licensed nurse. We also provide low-cost lab tests with our half-time lab tech. We keep medical charts on over 16,000 patients, including an ever increasing file of patients with chronic illnesses (suffering from hypertension, asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, Parkinsons, and hypothyroidism).

Our people's pharmacy fills the prescriptions written by our medical personnel for the patients. We give out tens of thousands of dollars worth of donated medicine and thousands of dollars of purchased medicine. [A current list of medications and equipment needed for the clinic is available here.] We have developed a Green Pharmacy to cut costs and to make health care a bit more sustainable.

Wound care is provided free to those who need it. Keeping wounds clean is very difficult for a people who live and work in the dust and mud. We have a medic who treats emergency and on-going wounds. Some of the wounds our staff treat are over 20 years old!

We provide a part-time counselor for adults, children, couples, and families. She incorporates play therapy and group therapy when appropriate and available. She has organized a weekly group of women who share their own experiences, learn, and help other battered women help each other.

We have a half-time dentist. In 2012 we hope to open a clinic with a full-time hygienist to clean teeth and teach dental hygiene.  In our part of Nicaragua, there are 10,000 people to 1 dentist. [In the USA, the average is about 0.5 dentist per 1,000.]  Poor dental hygiene contributes to chronic health conditions like Type II diabetes.

We offer eye correction services and need donated glasses to give to patients.

In 2011 we received two donations allowing us to hire a full-time health promoter.  She has organized and mobilized 25 health promoters who meet weekly to learn about various health issues.  Many of these promoters have received training and first aid kits (provided by the clinic) and open their homes even at night and on weekends to treat their neighbors.  A few health promoters have nebulizers and they, too, open their homes to the asthmatic.

Community education is growing as well as the needs.  These promoters have identified close to 500 children who are asthmatic, elderly patients who have little to no family support, young people and housewives wanting to learn about STDs and family planning, plus many others.  We are trying to address these needs.  Our nurse goes bi-weekly to visit elderly patients, does follow-up on critical cases (especially children), and leads trainings.

Since 1994, the CDCA has increased access to health care in Nicaragua by:

• Building three rural health centers and remodeling one rural health center
• Hosting volunteer health brigades to treat thousands of patients in many areas of western Nicaragua as well as hosting dental brigades
• Creating family planning options for Nicaraguan families through funding the cost of sterilization and providing birth control. [An estimated 72% of women in Nicaragua use contraceptives (UNICEF), resulting in an annual population growth of 1.08% (World Fact Book [WFB]) with women averaging 2.12 children each.  Today, 31.7% of the Nicaraguan population is under the age of 15 (CIA WFB)].
• Running a temporary health clinic in Nueva Vida for 1-1/2 years after Hurricane Mitch and building a permanent health clinic, which now has 11 paid staff and has expanded into a second building
• Maintaining charts on over 16,000 patients in the clinic, a rare practice in the area
• Providing on-going care for 150 chronically ill patients
• Distributing over $1 million worth of medicine through the People’s Pharmacy

Unfortunately, providing low-cost, quality health care is not sustainable. People living on $2.00 or even $1.00/day cannot provide for their own health care, it costs too much. A bottle of cough expectorant for someone with pneumonia costs $3.00! Now figure in the cost of seeing a doctor, antibiotics and a nebulization treatment and the choice becomes whether to get well or to eat. The current Nicaraguan government is providing free health care but they have a long way to go… if health care can be improved while international banks continue to clamor for privatization.

We do believe people need to contribute to their own health care; therefore, we require that people contribute a half day’s labor to the community OR a donation of 30 córdobas (which is about $1.31 U.S.). With this donation we provide their medical consult, any medicine prescribed that the clinic has in stock, and any follow-up visits that illness requires.

In order to keep our clinic running, we need your support.

Will you help?

·         You can sponsor on-going care for chronic patients with no insurance.  We encourage folks who have a chronic condition themselves to sponsor a Nicaraguan with the same condition: if you are a diabetic then you can donate $50/month to help 1-2 diabetics here; if you have hypertension you donate $25 to help another person cope with hypertension.  You can arrange an automatic on-line donation every month if you desire. 

·         You can pledge to the on-going expenses of the clinic. $400.00 will pay for one-full day of operations including the dentist! Again you can do this on-line.

·         You can collect medicines and supplies for the people's pharmacy, glasses, dental supplies, and laboratory supplies. We are able to give more comprehensive care with donated medicines. This also applies to equipment as well. For further information, please contact us.

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