December 2009

Apreciados Amigos de la Clinica,

It’s a beautiful morning on the remote Pacific coast of Nicaragua. The sun is shining, there isn’t a cloud in the sky. A gentle breeze sweeps over the hills and it seems like paradise.

But when you look a little closer, you see the poor villages of Limon and Tola. You see one-room shacks filled with people. You see that not everyone living here thinks of it as paradise… they’re struggling to survive.

But there is one place that gives them hope. It’s a tiny building at the end of a long, dusty road. This building has a line of villagers curling out the door… all waiting for Dr. Flores and his team to give them the medical attention they need.

It’s the Roberto Clemente-Santa Ana Health Clinic, and it’s the only local place these people can go to receive the medical help they need.

Whether it’s the young girl who needs to be vaccinated for measles and polio. Or the elderly man suffering from chest pains that are later diagnosed as a heart attack. Or the young woman who needs a safe place to deliver her child… all these people will get the help they need at the privately funded Roberto Clemente-Santa Ana Health Clinic.

The staff works tirelessly to help everyone who comes to the clinic. They know their work is not only saving lives… but also giving hope to a community that, only a few years ago, didn’t have anywhere to go nearby when they needed medical care.

But, the staff also faces a grim reality: They know that there isn’t enough to go around. They don’t have the supplies to vaccinate everyone in the nearby villages or to treat more complex injuries. They know that there are many people who need medical help and they desperately want to give it to them.

That’s why I’m writing to you today.

One of our biggest goals for 2010 is to expand our facilities. You could help us add three additional rooms. These rooms would give overnight patients a place to rest… would give privacy to women who receive OB/GYN services… and would provide a space for dental and lab services. This expansion would help us serve even more of this community.

Modern Healthcare for all who need it

The clinic is named for Roberto Clemente, star baseball player for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He died in a plane crash while delivering supplies to earthquake-torn Nicaragua in 1972. Clemente is a national hero in Nicaragua, and the clinic is a fitting tribute to his memory.

The people in the 41 poor villages surrounding the Roberto Clemente-Santa Ana clinic make about US$5 per day fishing or farming. They live in one-room shacks filled with multiple children. Many children can’t go to school because they simply don’t have the $40 they need for school supplies. There is certainly no extra money for healthcare.

Before the clinic opened in 2004, the nearest hospital was 45 minutes away over bumpy dirt roads… if you could secure transportation. Otherwise, you faced a staggering 30 kilometer walk.

Someone who needed emergency care would likely not make it in time. Women would deliver their babies at home. Children wouldn’t get the vaccines they needed.

Now, these families can go to the Clinica Roberto Clemente to get the help they need.

The clinic has helped so many of these people, but there is still so much more that can be done. That’s why we’re so excited about expanding our facilities. The entire community will benefit from the additional space and services we would be able to provide.

But, we need your help to build these rooms. Please click here to donate.

Making a Difference,
One Person at a Time

We treated over 8,900 patients in the past year.

812 children at local schools were treated for parasite infections.

Thanks to your generous donations, we’ve finally been able to get the ambulance we need. This ambulance helps us reach the people who wouldn’t be able to get to the clinic on their own. Now we can transfer patients to the closest hospital in Rivas quickly and avoid medical complications.

We’ve expanded our hours. A doctor or nurse is on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now, no matter the hour of day or day of the week, people can get the medical attention they so desperately need.

We’re also been able to hire a second doctor and make more medicines available at our pharmacy. Medicines for locals are subsidized by a program called Juan XXIII.

With hard work and your generous donations, the Roberto Clemente-Santa Ana Health Clinic is becoming a model private healthcare facility in Central America… but we want to do so much more.

We Need Your Help

We depend on individual donations to keep our promise to this community.

Our budget for 2010 is $135,000. This includes everything: filling the shelves with necessary vaccines and medicines … continuing our community outreach programs… maintaining our building… and paying our dedicated staff.

But, there is so much more that we’d like to do.

Our Goals for 2010:

• Build Three New Rooms: We’d like to expand our facilities and add three more rooms. One would give overnight patients a place to get much needed rest. One would provide a place for more private OB/GYN services. And one would provide a space for dental and lab services. The need for space is great, but we can’t expand without your help. The total cost for these new facilities is $40,000, not including equipment. Any amount you could donate would help us for 2010. Please click here to donate to expanding our facilities.
  
  
• Expand Our Community Outreach: We’d also like to continue and expand our outreach program, Medicina a Distancia. This traveling clinic and mobile pharmacy reaches the most unreachable places in Nicaragua. A traveling doctor and nurse provide low cost care to the people who would never be able to make it to our clinic on their own. The cost for our outreach program is $4,000 per month. Please click here to donate to this outreach program.
  
  
• Provide 24-hour Service, 7 Days a Week: We recently increased our hours of services and we’d like to be able to keep these expanded hours going. Locals and tourists benefit tremendously from this effort. The cost of expanding our hours has added US$1,300 per month to our budget. Please click here to donate to expanding our medical personnel.
  
  
• Give Kids a Safe Place to Play: We’d like to expand our youth education even further by building a baseball field. Right now, children in the area don’t have a place to play. We want to provide a safe haven for kids. The owner of the land behind the clinic will let us use the space to create a safe place for kids to play; but we need US$3,000 to build the baseball field. Please click here to donate now to youth educational support.

By helping us reach these goals, you are making a huge difference in this community. It is your donations that keep our doors open. You allow us to help thousands of people every year.

A Vital Part of the Community

We’ve expanded beyond medical care to offer health education, English lessons and educational supplies to the community. We know that health care goes beyond what happens in a doctor’s office… prevention is often the best medicine.

From the day we first opened our doors, the Roberto Clemente-Santa Ana Health Clinic has focused on public health education. We provide seminars on nutrition, prenatal care, how to create sanitary conditions at home, and much more.

Even more importantly, we focus much of our community outreach on the younger members of our community. Boys and girls aged 12-20 regularly meet with Nurse Martica Miranda to talk openly and honestly about the issues facing them today. She focuses on promoting sustained health and mental well-being to the young people she works with.

Our staff and volunteers visit local schools, giving out supplies of toothbrushes, books, pencils and paper to children in need. We know that keeping children healthy helps keep them in school… giving them a chance to better their entire lives.

Every Donation Helps…

Whether you volunteer, gift your donation, sponsor a child, or make a cash donation today, you will be helping this impoverished Nicaraguan community greatly. Here’s what your donations can do:

• $1,000 would fund our outreach medical program for an entire week. You would be directly responsible for helping to treat people who can’t make it to our clinic on their own.
  
  
• $500 would go a long way in our plan to expand our facilities. You could give us beds for overnight stays, lab equipment for our new dental office or be helping to build the walls themselves.
  
  
• $250 can buy enough vaccines to immunize the students in a local school… students who otherwise would risk dying of a disease like measles or polio.
  
  
• $50 a month for one child would help tremendously in treating him or her with a chronic illness or ensure they go to school.

Whether it is a donation of $100 or $10,000, every dollar goes a long way to help our clinic. Without your generous contributions, our clinic simply wouldn’t survive.

Sadly, the economic downturn has caused many of us to cut back on our charitable giving. People in the local villages are worried that we’ll have to close and they will no longer have a place to turn to when they need medical care.

That would be disastrous for this community. There are no 911 services in Nicaragua. Without the Roberto Clemente-Santa Ana Health Clinic, most people in our area would never receive the medical help they need.

Just imagine not being able to go to a doctor when you’re sick… Imagine not knowing where to turn if your child broke his leg… Imagine not having a safe, clean place to deliver your child… just because you happened to be born in a poor village in Nicaragua instead of in the U.S.

Your donations have the capacity to help more people than you can imagine. Every dollar is one more vaccine for a child in need… one more dose of antibiotics for a sick grandmother… one more box of bandages…

This is why I’m asking for your help…

Take a moment out of your day and help this community. Your donation will be put to work immediately… and it will be felt deeply in this community.

Since the Roberto Clemente-Santa Ana Health Clinic is recognized as exempt from federal income tax under section 501 ( c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code, donations are tax deductible.

And now, your donation
goes twice as far…

The Oxford Club will match your donations, dollar for dollar.

No matter how much you give, it will have a tremendous impact on the community.

Your donation saves lives. Please click here to donate.

If you’d like to send a check, please click here to print a form.

Your donation brings us one step closer to our goal of expanding our facilities. And, it will have a huge impact on the thousands of people who visit our clinic each year. You will give children a better chance at life. You will give the elderly and disabled the care they need. You will give the villagers in this area a place to turn to when they are sick or injured. You will give this community hope… a gift every one of us is extremely thankful for.

P.S. See your donations in action! The Roberto Clemente-Santa Ana Health Clinic is very accessible to visitors. It is just footsteps away from the Rancho Santana where you can stay overnight and Nicaragua’s breath-taking Pacific coast. The people of the community of Limon are very warm to visitors. We encourage you to visit this beautiful country, tour the clinic, meet with the clinic team and see your donations at work in the community.