When seeing Emanuel de Jesus standing there by his mother and Dr. Alvarez, all we could think was this: anything is possible. Emanuel is one of the first patients Dr. Alvarez saw in the early years of the neurosurgery program CAMO founded at the Hospital de Occidente of Santa Rosa de Copan. In 2009, he was born with Hydrocephalus… Continue reading Emanuel´s story of hope by clicking the link above.
This Annual Report is our opportunity to express our gratitude to our donors for their generosity and inform you regarding current conditions in Honduras. The current spectacle of a migrant caravan slowly making its way northward is driven by the very conditions that CAMO works to alleviate day by day. A world without hope of ever escaping poverty, a land of no opportunity, living in fear for one’s life if you speak out against leadership—these are some of the current conditions in Honduras.
Thanks to you 162,831 Hondurans were served by CAMO this year. Every day, the people we serve embrace us after receiving care, education or an opportunity for a better life. Our patients demonstrate this gratitude emotionally with a hug, tears, and with the question “why do you care for me” and we keep caring for them because of donors like you. Thank you.
Please take a look to CAMO at a Glance 2017-2018 to see the impact of our services this year.
Without exception, every visit presents dif¿cult medical situations. Sixteen-year-old Martha was one of these cases. An epileptic, she had been given too much of the wrong medicine to control seizures, but had never been seen by a specialist. Through our partnership with World Vision, we found her in terrible condition with severe secondary gingival hyperplasia and uncontrolled seizures. She was seen by our neurology program. With the correct treatment her gum disease was corrected and her seizures are now under control.Thanks to neurologist Dr. Lester Coello and his willingness to volunteer his services one day per week, CAMO assists with treatment of sixty-eight children with some form of neurological condition. Some, on coming to us, had up to twenty-one seizures a day. Now, under Dr. Coello’s treatment, the seizures are controlled completely. Through our partnership with World Vision, they assist with the cost of the medicine in some cases, while we cover the rest.
Left: Sixteen-year-old Martha at home, suffering from secondary gingival hyperplasia and uncontrolled seizures.
Right: Martha a few months after receiving the appropriate treatment from our neurology programs
In this newsletter, you´ll find a full written article about the reasons why Hondurans are leaving their country and risking their lives to fight poverty and unemployment. You will also find out about our latest accomplishments with the local governors and university leaders to improve health care and education in Western Honduras as well as some heartwarming stories about the impact of our medical programs in Honduras and the expanded reach of our literacy programs. Please continue to stand by us as your support is critically needed.
When seeing Emanuel de Jesus standing there by his mother and Dr. Alvarez, all we could think was this: anything is possible. Emanuel is one of the first patients Dr. Alvarez saw in the early years of the neurosurgery program CAMO founded at the Hospital de Occidente of Santa Rosa de Copán. In 2009, he was born with hydrocephalus (a condition in which fluid accumulates in the brain, enlarging the head and sometimes causing brain damage).
Emanuel was diagnosed with this condition at birth, so Dr. Alvarez quickly performed the essential surgery: placing a valve to drain the liquid from his head. Emanuel’s mother, Sandra, admits that this was perhaps the most difficult moment of her life. She also expresses the sorrow she felt when watching other children develop and learn to walk, while her beloved child struggled just to make small movements.
But in the years since that difficult beginning, Emanuel has made amazing progress. Thanks to Dr. Alvarez’s early intervention and follow-up treatments, as well as to weekly therapy sessions at Teleton (the rehabilitation center in Santa Rosa) and at-home exercises, Sandra slowly began to see significant improvement in Emanuel’s abilities.
Now, Emanuel’s progress amazes all of us. Not only is he walking and running, but he is also able to live a normal life, doing typical things that nine-year-old boys enjoy: he is a proud third grader and loves to play soccer. We are profoundly thankful that Emanuel has been able to receive this life-changing treatment through CAMO’s neurosurgery program in Santa Rosa de Copán.
Through this contest we not only encouraged children to share “something” they had done for others, but also what motivated them to practice those values that guide us to be aware and take action of other’s needs.
By: Kathryn Tschiegg, Founder and International Director of CAMO
As years have passed, more and more is being done but often I am busy with meetings, staff management, writing grants and newsletters, finding solutions to problems or preventing problems from happening. It is a daily challenge to get medical care to a developing country’s population with 70% under-employed or unemployed can be overwhelming. So I seldom get to have hands-on experiences and see the result of the days, months and years of work that has been invested.But I was honored to be a part of a simple yet life changing, moment. Mercedes in 1997 had made a bedspread for my bed in Honduras, during which time I shared with her CAMO’s programs, one of which was a breast clinic and #mammography program. Mercedes called me in March 2002; she had noted a change in her left breast and felt a lump. Her voice was panicked; she had been diagnosed with #breastcancer. I went to her home and we sat together and cried. I remembered the times I had been frightened by health issues, and I was thankful that God allowed me to feel this fear so I could better serve Mercedes at this moment.
On my return to Honduras on Feb 2, 2003, Mercedes had a left mastectomy with lymph node removal. It left her left chest and left armpit concave. She left a message for me at the Honduras office, requesting help to find a left breast prosthesis. I called the USA CAMO office manager Helen for help. Who just happened to be sitting there? None other than Marcia Murphy, a mammography technologist who would be arriving in Honduras with the CAMO team in three short days. Marcia went the extra miles to get the prosthesis from the American Cancer Society and arrived in Honduras with it days later.
Monday afternoon Bonnie Yoder Medina, Marcia Murphy and I made a surprise visit to Mercedes at home. I had made no promises to Mercedes so this was truly an unexpected visit. Mercedes was behind her sewing machine on our arrival. All of us were so excited about the prosthesis, we asked her if she wanted to see if it fit and to make a choice between one of the two that were given to us. We went into her bedroom and the transformation began. First timid as the new bra and the prosthetic breast was shown, she showed us her incision and then put the bra with the prosthesis on. As she turned to look into the mirror her expression changed to disbelief. She touched it; it felt natural. We encouraged her to try the second one on. She did, and as she did so, her eyes welled up with tears. “It feels normal, the same weight as my own breast,” she said. Again she looked at herself in the mirror. The tears were now readily flowing down her face and she started to share. “You see, I have not been able to go to the market. People know that I had the surgery and they stare at me,” she explained. “My clothes do not cover the fact that I have no breast. I have not felt normal until now.”
I looked at Marcia and Bonnie; we all had tears in our eyes. And as we left, I looked behind me and Mercedes was at her sewing machine surrounded by her friends. With a smile, she began unbuttoning her blouse to show her friends. I felt joy for her, and once again I thanked God for showing me why the days, months and years are all worth it.
True, it was amazing timing that Marcia happened to be visiting CAMO on that particular day before her trip to Honduras and was able to get the prosthesis. But things do not just happen in the world of CAMO; behind every story is a network of supplies, equipment and knowledge. And those supplies, equipment and knowledge are generously given by donors JUST LIKE YOU. Without our network, CAMO would have been unable to help women like Mercedes and the many women since who have faced uncertainty and fear in the face of breast cancer. You can give certainty and HOPE through making sure CAMO is there for these women. Give today
Each week our team, consisting of five dentists and the driver is prepared from very early hours to travel to the rural communities taking with them the dental modules and the supplies needed to perform the dental treatments to the 40 patients that are waiting to be seen during that day.
It is really satisfying for us to see how these services have an almost immediate impact on the lives of many people, as witnesses of the dental care provided to them we see the dedication of our volunteers and staff. On many occasions our patients approach us almost afraid of being seen due to their frontal cavities, covering their mouths and perhaps imagining that the only solution will be teeth extraction, however, their surprise is great when looking at the mirror after their treatment and seeing their white teeth, there are not words to describe their emotions just a thankful smile that lights up their faces.
To date, this year we have provided 54 dental brigades in partnership with 9 municipal governments in the communities of greatest need in western Honduras with the support of well-known organizations such as World Vision and Danilo’s Care, reaching children and elder people who hadn´t have dental care before. We are grateful because this year alone we have provided more than 8,000 dental services to 2,600 patients.”Our experience with CAMO Foundation during dental brigades has been fabulous, their dentists devote the necessary time to recover the patients’ dental pieces” – are Narda Valdivieso´s words the Municipal and Technical Unit Coordinator of San Pedro Copán; one of the communities se serve.
An education component is also part of each of our brigades, it is important for us to educate patients on how to take care of their teeth, we also deliver oral hygiene kits, thanks to the recent donation of toothpastes and toothbrushes that Colgate Palmolive Honduras has provided.
Due to the need of standard care in nursing procedures in Honduras, in 2014 CAMO reached out to the Nursing Faculty of the Aultman´s Hospital in Ohio to find a solution to this need that was clearly affecting lives. In response to our request, they opened the doors to train four nurses from the Hospital de Occidente in Santa Rosa de Copan. The goal was for them to replicate this education with all the Hospital´s staff.
We can´t be happier with the results, what started with only four nurses is now a major program that continues to grow… during the current year 2018, and with the support of SG Foundation, CAMO launched the most ambitious phase of the standardization program for nursing protocols in Honduras. This program has trained the nursing staff of the leading hospital in western Honduras; the Hospital de Occidente, which serves almost one million people. On the other hand, CAMO created a manual for the standardization of nursing procedures and 600 copies have been published and are already in use at the UNITEC University, a prestigious and one of the most well-known universities in Honduras.
Now with the vision of reaching other hospitals, four more nurses are being trained… this time from the Juan Manuel Galvez Hospital in the department (state) of Gracias Lempira in hopes that they will as well become facilitators of ongoing training processes for more than 150 nurses in their hospital.
Think of all that we can accomplish… the right education will allow better practices and better care for the health of patients in Honduras, of course, we still have a long way to go but this is just the beginning.
