Diabetes Care for Kaqchikel Maya

Dear Friends,  As the Medical Director of our organization, I've been completing the annual review of our diabetes program over the last few months. This has included visiting with most of the patients enrolled in the program to get their feedback, and it has also included observing our staff in their regular...

Dear friends,  We are very excited about plans for our diabetes programing in 2013. We've just hired some new staff to expand our capacity. This has become very important lately, as our panel of diabetic patients has continued to grow. In particular, we are now managing a core group of patients with very long-standing...

Dear friends, one of the things that amazes me the most about Wuqu' Kawoq's diabetes staff and program is how adaptable and capable they are, and how committed to patient care. This was recently demonstrated to me by two recent cases from last month.  Since we are largely a referral diabetes program, patients tend to...

Dear friends, More than anything, I attribute the success of our diabetes programs to our amazing staff - nurses and health promoters - who every day advocate for patients and make sure that they have all the resources necessary to live healthy lives. Let me just tell you one story by way of example. Several months ago,...

Dear friends,  We have been running diabetes programs in Guatemala now for nearly 7 years! Over that time, a guiding aspect of our philosophy and approach to patients has been accompaniment and home visits. As you probably know, diabetic patients often have a hard time meeting the strict guidelines set forth for...

Dear friends,  Over the last few months since I last wrote a project update for our diabetes program, a lot of great things have happened! As you know, for a number of years now we have focused on educational initiatives for our diabetic patients, coupled with intensive glucose-lowering strategies. One of the most...

Dear friends, for us hear at Wuqu' Kawoq, our diabetes program in near and dear to our hearts. It was our first program ever, and still to this date one of our more successful. But we often get asked by others why we have chosen to focus so many of our resources on diabetes. Here's the reason why. Although many people, when...

Dear friends, the intervening months since our last project report on our diabetes projects have been busy ones!   In particular, one of our newer staff members Herlinda, a nurse from Tecpan, has been working hard to get up to speed on all the ins and outs of our diabetes program. She is now stepping into...

  The first draft version of the heart health and diabetes manual is now complete thanks to our collaboration with the Comunidad Lingüística Kaqchikel. The manual has been culturally adapted to our patient population in rural Guatemala. The manual serves as a key educational tool for diabetes self care,...

Starting in January 2011, work began in earnest on our new diabetes training manual. The idea for this manual came out of a collaboration we have with INCAP (Institute of Nutrition in Central America and Panama) and APRECOR (Guatemalan Association for Prevention of Heart Disease) to develop better educational resources...

“If you have money you can get treatment, if not the best thing to do is die.” Arminia explained her hopelessness in battling diabetes. Diabetics in the rural communities of Guatemala express similar hopelessness with the severity of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Collaborative research on these perspectives...

“Poverty entered my house because of diabetes,” said Doña Dominga, a 55-year-old woman of Santiago Sacatepéquez. During a recent survey we conducted among our diabetic patients, Dominga related to us the story of her diagnosis and initial treatments with a series of health care providers, which drained her life...

Did you know that, by contributing to Wuqu' Kawoq's adult diabetes treatment programs in Guatemala, you are participating in a paradigm shift? Previously in Guatemala, there has been very little attention to the treatment of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney disease. However, as antibiotics...

Dear friends, I have just returned from Guatemala, where I had the chance to interact with many of the diabetics enrolled in our program. I am happy to report that all are content with the program and most are achieving great diabetes control. The last several months have seen great success in improving the dietary and...

2009 has been a great year for our diabetes work in Guatemala! Thanks to the generous support of our donors and sponsors, we are now providing comprehensive diabetes care to 50 Kaqchikel-speaking adults in three highland Guatemalan towns. In October and November, we completed a comprehensive medical evaluation of all...