Medical Care for Rural Guatemalan Families

In order to identify patients in need or surgical care, Partner for Surgery (PfS) has a network of Health Promoters who are actively engaged in the various rural communities we serve in Guatemala.

Health Promoters help publicize triage and surgical missions. They escort patients to the hospital and stay with them until they are ready to go home.

If problems develop, patients know they can count on Health Promoters for reassurance and assistance.

The example of Marta and Felisa

Like many older women in rural Guatemala, Felisa lives alone. Her husband died 25 years ago and her children have all left the small village where they were raised. Felisa gets along by walking into the mountains every morning, looking for herbs, fruits and vegetables to sell in the local market. 

Six years ago Felisa came to a PfS rural triage mission with an inguinal hernia, the result of her heavy labor. 

Our Health Promoter in that area, Marta, made sure Felisa received an hernia repair with a PfS surgical team. 

One year later, Marta met Felisa in the market and learned she had another hernia. Felisa had another surgical repair. Recently, Marta learned Felisa was in great pain with a prolapsed uterus so she again took charge, and Felisa had her third surgery with a PfS surgical team. 

Felisa is now healthy and has a wonderful smile. Any time a PfS team is in her village she stops by to say hello.

Your donations help us restore dignity and health for people like Felisa. Thank you for your support!

Ana, born with a cleft lip and palate, was 6 months old in May - the fifth child of a day laborer earning two dollars a day to support his entire family. Two older brothers attend school, further stressing the family’s finances. They live outside the village of Chisec in a rented house that does not have electricity or water.

In January Ana was brought to a Partner for Surgery medical mission in Chisec and admitted to our in-home Cleft Infant Nutrition Program. Since then, our health promoter for the area, Julio Sel, has visited monthly to provide Ana formula, monitor her health, and offer education on maintaining good health for the whole family. Fortunately, Ana qualified in July for the first of the two corrective surgeries she will need.

We are confident that Ana will be one of the 1,000 Partner for Surgery patients that we expect to receive a surgical procedure this year from one of the 17 teams we support with patients. Thank you again for your support and I look forward to updating you again on our activities.

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