More Babies and Mothers

During the past two weeks our field staff has been very busy with babies and mothers. We asked our Human Rights monitors to make sure everyone received the critical medical care they needed, regardless of our current funds.  We refuse to allow preventable deaths to occur just because we are waiting for grant money, and have promised our workers on the ground that we will do all the necessary fundraising to catch up with them if the costs of emergency care delivery should exceed our operating budget.

Well, they’ve been working very hard and we have a lot of fundraising to do or we could run out of operational funds.  Here are some pictures.

Mme. Mesina Doing Better

Last month we had another emergency. Friends of Mme. Mesina approached us with the news that she had been bleeding for almost a week after having miscarried on the dirt floor of her home.  We took her to the doctor and paid for ultrasounds and emergency lab work. She had lost so much blood that now she needed an emergency transfusion to survive. Unfortunately, there is no blood bank in the area, so we broadcast over the local radio station that we were looking to pay for blood, and were contacted by a few volunteers.  After testing the safety of the blood, doctors performed the transfusion and she started to improve.

Madame Mesina just after we brought her to the hospital. She bled for a week after her miscarriage.

The next day we took her by public bus, still bleeding, to another hospital 3 hours away, where she was hospitalized. We again covered for all her medical costs, including further blood transfusions.

Two days ago we returned to pick her up. She was very happy to see us, and her husband was waiting for her at our Human Rights monitor’s house. We gave her the new medicines the doctors prescribed and paid for her transportation back home.

Mme. Mesina when we picked her up at the hospital.

She came very close to dying from the hemorrage, so her husband was very happy to see her back!

New medicines.

American Humanist Association donates $2,400 for Casa de Salud

The membership of the American Humanist Association just sent us a check for $2,400. These funds are earmarked for the Casa de Salud, the house near the hospital where we will have pregnant women stay, so that we don’t have to rush them down from the forest at midnight when their labor pains start. The plans are to establish the house this December!

Babies and Mothers

Here are some pictures from the babies and mothers we’ve been attending in the past couple weeks. All of the babies you see were delivered at the hospital by our Human Rights Monitors’ efforts, and all of them had their necessary vaccinations. Children of the Border was able to cover the costs of all necessary procedures and medications, and in a few cases we provided food for the mother during her post-delivery convalescence. One of these women is still in the hospital in Barahona, and we visit her every two days. She had a miscarriage and bled from the placenta for a week before we learned about her and by then she needed multiple blood transfusions.

The couch you see pictured is in the home of one of our Human Rights monitors. Her house is the de facto clinic, from where she takes people to the hospital and has them wait for appointments, until we open our own community health center.

Premature baby doing well.