The vacant lot next door to the public hospital, La Mascota Children's Hospital, is being transformed into a new Pediatric Heart Center of Nicaragua, as Surgeons of Hope's project is beginning to take shape.
These much-needed supplies are intended for emergency use in pediatric heart operations when the young patient needs to be stabilized in the Intensive Care Unit. These supplies and more will be needed when the new Pediatric Heart Center opens. In the meantime, they are necessary for the surgical teams who visit La Mascota for missions to operate and train the local team, all in preparation for the opening of the new building, which will in turn fill a role as a modern surgical center and as a learning center for the region. Eventually, Surgeons of Hope will provide supplies and medications to the new Center.
As Valentine's Day is approaching, why not make a gift to our supplies project, knowing that you are being a friend to a child's heart, a heart which needs your friendship. Love can truly enter the heart in friendship's disguise. And, what better way to celebrate Valentine's Day! If you would like to make a gift on behalf of some special someone, simply read the details below:
Whenever you make a GlobalGiving donation in someone else's name, they'll receive a card from Global Giving with the details of the goodness done in their name. Just select "Make this donation in honor of someone" during checkout, and you'll be prompted for further information.
Choose the Surgeons of Hope project you would like to support and the amount you would like to give, and check the box "Make this Donation in Honor of Someone?" at checkout.
You will be prompted to indicate how you would like the card sent (e-mail or postal mail), the card design, and all recipient details. You also can enter a personal message to the recipient.
Preview: Once you have entered all information, you can preview the card to see an image of what the recipient will receive.
When you have completely filled out the fields, please be sure to click the orange "Save" button.
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Love enters the heart in friendship's disguise. Be a friend this Valentine's Day to a child who needs Surgeons of Hope to repair his or her young heart. We are doing something new this very week, following our highly successful echocardiography training session which took place last October.
Our three-person mission is doing great things this week at La Mascota Children's Hospital. Dr. Emilie Carvello from the University of Maryland Medical Center is joining with Clayton Dobronyi, RN, and Danielle Lucero, Sterile Process Educator, both from Children's Hospital of Colorado. Together they are teaching the local hospital staff of doctors and nurses in intensive sessions about Basic and Advanced Pediatric Life Support and Sterile Processing. After their first day, they report a large number of participants, all of whom are eager to learn and thoroughly engaged as students and trainers. In addition to learning the techniques, they are learning how to teach those techniques to others.
Surgeons of Hope President, Eduardo da Cruz, Head of Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care at Children's Hospital of Colorado, said, "We are inducing a cultural change by integrating nurses into the project. This is a new concept in Nicaragua." And, nurses are working and learning together with the doctors. Truly, we are training the trainers.
While you are thinking of love on Valentine's Day, why not make a donation? Be that friend to a child's heart. If you make the donation on behalf of someone else through Global Giving, your honoree will receive a lovely notice from Global Giving, thereby spreading the friendship and love around a bit.
Here are some instructions to get you started:
Whenever you make a GlobalGiving donation in someone else's name, they'll receive a card from GlobalGiving with the details of the goodness done in their name. Just select "Make this donation in honor of someone" during checkout, and you'll be prompted for further information.
On one of the Surgeons of Hope Project Pages, check the box "Make this Donation in Honor of Someone?" at checkout.
You will be prompted to indicate how you would like the card sent (e-mail or postal mail), the card design, and all recipient details. You also can enter a personal message to the recipient.
Preview: Once you have entered all information, you can preview the card to see an image of what the recipient will receive.
When you have completely filled out the fields, please be sure to click the orange "Save" button.
Links:
Although our new GlobalGiving project to answer an emergency call from La Mascota Children's Hospital in Nicaragua for a shipment of a quantity of Sodium Nitroprusside is just joining our original GlobalGiving listing, we are pleased to report that we have been able to send along a small amount to get them started. We hope to send more vials of the medicine in the near future, with your help.
Nitroprusside can save the life of a child in a post-op emergency situation when blood pressure levels can suddenly rise to endanger that child's life. It doesn't always happen, but when it does, then this medicine needs to be at hand. Once administered, this medicine can bring the health crisis right back into line and allow a normal recovery.
Because this medicine is so important, that's why the need for it is so important, and why the hospital sent us an urgent request.
In addition to considering making a donation, we need you to forward a link to this request to your Facebook and Twitter world, asking others to join you in helping this poor hospital and its young patients.
As our motto states, "It's not only what we give, it's what we leave behind." We need to give this relatively inexpensive medicine, so that we can leave behind a healthy child.
Surgeons of Hope's goal is to bring hope to a new generation in countries emerging from poverty by establishing a high quality of care for their children with cardiac diseases while promoting education of health professionals in a modern environment.
Let's see that the next mission progress report can celebrate that we are close to goal and that lots of Sodium Nitroprusside has been sent to this struggling hospital.
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