So Many Needs

25. July 2010 by Fortunato Velasquez.

I cry when I see the state of the hospital that serves the community where I live.  The Dr. Roberto Suazo Cordoba Hospital in La Paz was built during the presidency of Dr. Suazo Cordoba, a native of the city, in the 1980s.  The hospital is located at the “El Soldado” round-about, the city’s busiest intersection and entryway to the mercado at the right of the picture on the bottom right where thousands of citizens of the outlying aldeas come on weekends to shop and be seen.  At the hospital is where most of the departamento’s babies are born.  The pictures are of the maternity ward.  I work with the Hogar Materno Grupo de Apoyo (support group), a group of cititizens and hospital employees who raise money to improve the quality of life for the hospital’s patients.  The Hogar Materno is a separate building where the aldeas’ poor pregnant mothers come down from the mountains to stay before they are ready to deliver, often staying there several days: the conditions there are even worse than in the pictures.  My present projects at the hospital are to help install a potable water system at the Hogar Materno similar to the one installed by ADEC (Agua Desarroyo para la Comunidad) at the Hogar San Jose for the orphan children, and to write an SPA grant (Small Project Assistance) to renovate the hospital’s maternity unit.  There is so much to do….

Posted in Everyday | 1 Comment »