Link for Health

Our friends at Casa de Sion have seen a baby today who needs some help.  I believe that the family is in Solola, but we will have to confirm that with Vicki.  Please read their report, and email Vicki at the address below, or click on the “Leave a Comment” link below, if you have any ideas.

I wondered a few days ago if we would ever see a baby with a cleft palate that needed help. Well at the pediatric clinic today we did. A very poor Mayan family showed up with 4 children under 8. All were glassy eyed and severely malnourished. The 4 month old baby had a really bad cleft palate making it difficult for him to take any nourishment. We gave him formula and bottles and infant cereal. We gave the rest of the family 15 bags of incaparina. They had walked a long ways to get to the clinic. We want to continue to help them and esp. to get the babies’ lip fixed. To do this we need your help. Write me to let me know you want to help:  20.vicki@gmail.com.

We received an update from Vicki about this family.  I want to thank everyone who helped to network for this family.  For me, this has highlighted the potential power of networking amongst both medical and non-medical groups.

Thanks to ClinicLink.org, and the post from my blog about needing help for the cleft palate baby, help has come. We have specialty bottles we can get right away. We also have a hospital in San Marcos who will take all the children if malnourished and nurse them to better health. They will work to get the baby healthy enough to have surgery. They have a surgery team coming in May that can fix his cleft palate. Now I just have to connect everybody so it happens. We had several other people who offered to help such as COTA. I plan to connect with them also. thanks everyone.

Here is a picture of the baby being held by Debbie, my volunteer coordinator who ran the clinic yesterday. The other picture is of the family of the baby. Debbie says all of the kids need help.