At the heart of the Pop Wuj Clinic, is a vision for quality, sustainable healthcare delivered to the most vulnerable residents of Quetzaltenango and several villages in the surrounding rural Highlands of Guatemala. The project, started in 2006 by an Emergency Medicine resident, is now a model for grassroots, collective efforts between a nationally recognized academic medical center in New York City, a thriving socially-minded Spanish language school, and their NGO partners at the Timmy Foundation and Todos Juntos. To learn more about the clinic, please visit their website.
Currently, the clinic is open on weekdays and is staffed by a local doctor and administrator as well as by visiting medical students and physicians from abroad who are part of the medical Spanish program at Pop Wuj. 1-2 days of the week the clinic is on the road serving several rural communities, including a village being rebuilt after hurricane Stan (Xelabaj) Pacaxoj, and La Guarderia, a shelter and daycare center for mothers and their children.
The clinic is also the base for regular medical brigades coming from the United States to provide other care and specialty services. Currently physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals from New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, and The Timmy Foundation bring medical supplies and trained personnel to the clinic 4-6 times/year. Medical students and other volunteers from around the United States, Canada, and other parts of the world who come primarily for the Spanish language program are welcome to volunteer with them during the times they are at the clinic.
Pop Wuj Clinic operates closely with the following partners:
Pop Wuj Spanish School Originally started in 1992, Pop Wuj (pronounced “pope-woo”) Spanish School is a collectively owned and operated Spanish language school. Connecting the clinic to this outstanding Spanish language school with a social mission is an essential part of their vision. As an integral part of the school’s curriculum, the clinic will help to generate income for the school: by increasing the value of its medical Spanish courses, offering cultural sensitivity classes, day trips and other events for visiting volunteers. This income will then go towards maintaining the clinic. As this collaboration between the clinic and the school develops, we hope to be able to sustain the clinic primarily through income generated by this relationship.
New York – Presbyterian Hospital The Emergency Medicine Residency Program at New York – Presbyterian has a strong commitment to international medicine, and plays a leading role in the Pop Wuj clinic. With its access to the institution’s intellectual, human, and material resources it provides unparalleled strength to the project through its physicians, nurses, medical students and other support staff who provide direct clinical care; and skilled hands-on training and education to local practitioners and healthcare promoters through organized projects that address the local community healthcare needs. The association of the clinic with this academic institution also provides a quality international experience to its medical students, resident physicians, nurses, public health fellows and others interested in international medicine, helping them to understand and participate in the challenges of global healthcare. In addition, by providing immersion Spanish and cultural sensitivity courses the school is a resource for those healthcare providers wishing to improve their interactions with primarily Spanish speaking patients.
Timmy Foundation The Timmy Foundation currently sends a group of volunteers every few months to the Pop Wuj Clinic to offer medical relief at the clinic and its surrounding villages. Additionally, The Timmy Foundation sends monetary support for their partners at Pop Wuj to maintain the year-round efforts to increase outreach to the rural poor in the highlands.
Todos Juntos Founded in 2001, Foundation Todos Juntos is an NGO devoted to supporting public health and education projects, and providing scholarships for students, in the Highlands of Guatemala. Their current projects include the stove project to build fuel efficient wood-burning stoves in rural communities in order to reduce the epidemic of lung related illnesses from open indoor fires, the latrine project to prevent outbreaks of dysentery, reduce the childhood epidemic of parasitic infections, and protect local water supplies, and most recently to help co-ordinate the efforts for the Pop Wuj Clinic.
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