Remodeled Laboratory opens its doors!

The Clinica Maxeña continues to grow with patients, needs, expectations, and JOY!
It was founded in 1966 by myself and another Register Nurse, Emma Jean Reis of Montana. We were young, inexperienced and the area was very impoverished with no medical facilities to speak of for miles. Patients came in carried, strapped to chairs, usually dying from malnutrition or Tuberculosis. Our budget was small, we had sample medicines and little equipment. Now more than forty years later, we are well respected by Health officials and doctors in the area, patients prefer us, and we offer quality care with compassion. Our services are for the most poor and many patients cannot pay the minimal cost of doctor consult of 2 dollars. We have 30 employees which include medical personell, accountants, maintenance, kitchen employees, and a Medicinal Plant Clinic with Mayan alternative medicine. We are a catholic parish clinic, founded by the Diocese of Helena Montana, when the Bishop of Montana responded to the call to send missionaries to LATIN AMERICA.

Our needs grew, and our friends responded. The Clinic diagnostic services began with a donated microscope to identify parasite eggs. Our Laboratory now employs a dedicated Laboratory Technologist with over 25 years experience in the government hospital lab and two lab technicians. We are able to diagnose AIDS, Malaria, Diabetes, Dengue, Typhoid, and perform all the routine laboratory tests. We are able to type and cross and administer blood products. We have a new electrocardiogram machine and we soon hope to purchase a portable ultrasound machine. With this expansion of service and increase of patients the laboratory outgrew its space in the Clinica Maxeña. fortunately we has a small building that has been home to many different projects over the years. Last year the mountain clinic project, which had been part of the Clinica Maxeña for five years, became independent and moved to new quarters in town. We remodeled this building with a donation from the Diocese of Helena and yesterday had a small celebration with the Clinic personell, music and cake to initiate our new Laboratory.

Thank YOU for your continued support to our work with the Mayan population in Guatemala.

WATER IS A SOURCE OF LIFE!!

This week the mission is hosting members of the Rotary Club of LIBBY, MONTANA. They are here to at last begin a water project for the impoverished community, PASIN, which is located about 30 minutes from the Clinic. The choosing of the village, the fund raising by the Rotary, and requirements for a Rotary International project, slowed considerably the initiation of the project. The community has doubled in population since they first obtained a water source thirty years ago. Most houses have water only a few hours a day and some none; the tubing is leaking in some places, and very narrow and inadequate throughout. Families would have only one source of water, usually outside in a cement like sink. Most would bathe from this source, using a small basin to throw water on themselves. Very few have outdoor toilets so the coffee fields are very contaminated with fecal material, which also can seep into the water tank, or resevoir for potable water.

The Clinica Maxeña has a very active environmental committee that is also supported and guided by workshops of Pastoral Health of the Diocese here in Guatemala. The 2010 theme for International day of Water is CLEAN WATER FOR A HEALTHY WORLD;
IT INCLUDES CONSERVATION AND PROTECTION OF RESOURCES OF WATER. In 2009, the area in which we live and work, had a major forest fire on the Volcano PECUL, where all our water sources originate. We are aware that this decreased our water availability for this area by 30%. Deforestation also affects greatly the availabililty of water in our area. The Clinica Maxeña has a smaller SAFE WATER PROJECT for clorination of drinking water; this project moves slowly but steadily as one must convinced families to the value of potable water. We also promote a stove that conserves fire wood, the ONIL STOVE. This stove costs $100. per family, and we have been blessed by many who have gifted a stove for a poor family of our area. THANK YOU!!

We are very grateful for the generosity and committment of the Rotary of Libby, Montana for this very valuable contribution to water for the Community of Pasin.
WATER IS A SOURCE OF LIFE! It is a resource most of us take for granted. Can you imagine your life without water. Thank you for support for our presence in Guatemala.

Photos include the Libby delegation and engineer, David, visiting the water tank, in the community of Pasin, and another of some of the Libby delegation, myself and the engineer, at the Mission of the Diocese of Helena, MT.

BLESSINGS! SHEILA

Our Emergency Room

Good Afternoon from Guatemala,
Here it is very warm and a quiet Sunday afternoon. This past Friday our emergency room in the Clinica Maxena was very busy. We had two field workers with wounds from the large bladed knife used in the field that had to be sutured; we had a diabetic with a very high glucose; and our last patient was a 55 year old field worker who was cutting tree when he fell and a heavy branch fell across his abdomen. He was accompanied by more than 20 friends and neighbors. He also had a large wound on his head. Fortunately the town ambulance responds quickly to the Clinic and takes our emergencies to the hospital. He was in great pain. We started an intravenous fluid,gave him pain injection and covered his head wound in preparation for the ambulance. The family decided they would not take him to the government hospital. Reality is it was the weekend and the care would be inferior; it was a good decision to take him to a private hospital. We have a very good surgeon who assists these cases who is very conscious of the poors ability to pay. The man had an acute abdomen, low blood pressure with an intestinal rupture and needed emergency surgery. In these cases it is the families responsibility to pay and unlike the states neighbors and families chip in to help pay the bill. Today the doctor told me he may also have a fractured pelvis which was later confirmed. A specialist said it should heal with complete bedrest. The total cost of care and surgery could be approximately 2,000. dollars which again does not compare to what one would pay at home. One must remember however that here the field worker earns less than ten dollars a day! It would be nice if health care was a human right all over the world. Somehow it seems like it should be!!

We are always trying to improve our facilities and we have many needs in our emergency room. With a grant from the diocese last year we were able to purchase an EKG machine and also now have oxygen. We need better lighting, more emergency meds and equipment. Suture is always a big need as many emergencies the patient is unable to pay and wounds are very common.. Donations are most welcome. Thank you for accompanying us in our service to the POOR. The gift of LIFE is the greatest gift one can give to another.

ENCLOSED A PICTURE OF A HAPPY FATHER FOLLOWING EMERGENCY BIRTH IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM OF THE CLINICA MAXEÑA!

Send your donation to:
Guatemala Mission
(Note for Clinic or NURSES FUND)
PO Box 1729
Helena, MT
59624

THANK YOU AND BLESSINGS
Sheila

A LIGHT FOR HUMANITY

Last evening I and Sr Anna and Mary went to the next town to a movie that we did not want to miss; it was in honor of the assasinated Bishop of Guatemala, Juan Gerardi. It was the last evening for the movie and less than ten people were there. It was not published in the local newspaper. It was produced by the Office of Human Rights of the Archdiocese of Guatemala. It will be made available by this office in the future in DVD so it can be viewed by the people in communities. Here in Central America, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador and Bishop Juan Gerardi of Guatemala are already considered SAINTS, Prophets, and Martyrs of the faith by the people. That this picture was able to be produced and viewed in movie houses around GUATEMALA is great advancement for HUMAN RIGHTS in a country and a CHURCH that suffered repression and assasinations in the eighties. More than 15 religious were assasinated during this time. Monseñor Juan Gerardi and Fr. Stan Rother, friend and missionary of the Oklahoman Dioscesean Mission on Lake Atitlan were two martyrs of great importance to us. Montana, Oklahoma, and Spokane responded to the call of the Pope to send Catholic missionaries to Latin America in the sixties. Thousands of Catechists, Union Leaders, University students, professors, and field workers disappeared, were assasinated, or tortured in this decade.

For me this movie had special significance as I witnessed the suffering repression and armed conflict of the eighties when these masacres and disappearances took place. Now more than thirty years later the truth is being made known and families are demanding their right to justice. Bishop Juan Gerardi published a documentary in 1998 with all the names and those responsible for the deaths and disappearances; two days later he was assasinated in the rectory of his parish, a few blocks from the Presidential Palace in Guatemala City. Four Military commanders are now in prison for this assasination.

His committment to justice and truth has not been in vain. BLESSED BE HIS NAME!