The "Foundation of Hope" in the city of Santarem in the State of Para in the north of Brazil fills a void for low income families in preventive health care with a clinic for dental care and a clinic for general health care (especially for mothers and smaller children). I visited them as part of the agenda during a project evaluation mission for the Rotary International Foundation.
The organization was started about 50 years ago by an American missionary medical doctor. They have grown into a very professional local NGO offering wonderful essential health services to low income families. Much of their external funding over the years has come from USAID, but they are reasonably self-sustaining because their clients/patients have to pay modest fees for the services.
This is an overview of their services including dental hygiene, immunizations, mother & child care consultancies, psychological assistance, and work safety consultancy. The "Projecto Quilombo" is the river boat project described in the previous post (they called the escaped slaves "Quilombos").
These are (most of) the members of the management team of the clinics which employs about 300 medical staff , technicians, administrators and support staff. The lady on the right is the operational manager and she was promoted to this position last year after several years work in the purchasing team (she has done lots of professional development and she just started a distance Master program in hospital management; great to see professional people in such local NGOs).
This is the reception of the dental clinic. Thanks to the Rotary donation 4 years ago the clinic could not only purchase about $200,000 in additional and new equipment but also a few computers to professionalize their patient administration system. Clean, professional and friendly atmosphere.
In the waiting room on the wall one can find a nice plaque with acknowledgement of the recent donations of the Rotary Clubs locally and internationally. Below with Steven Winn Alexander who is an American Brazilian, long time Rotarian and also consultant health administrator to the clinics.
Dental hygiene is so important for general public health. Nice to see the young fellow happy..
The American dentist Bill Chase has started this dental clinic many years ago, and he stills comes frequently as a visiting volunteer dentist to see how they further develop.
The waiting room of the medical clinic. Obviously well used....
The clinic has an impressive laboratory for in-house blood and urine tests (funded by USAID) with some state-of-the-art equipment. This makes treatment time and referral decisions much quicker.
The organization does a lot of active professional development with its staff. We bumped into a session on "safety in health care" with some of the staff and interns. The organization also does some modest outreach in the communities, and for that Rotary donated a VW minivan as well as a Toyota pick-up truck. The cars are well used and well maintained. I always have a warm feeling when I see these VW vans because I travelled with one of those in 1982 through the African Sahara and during my years with MSF in Maputo in 1988 and 1989 we also had one of these excellent workhorses...
Across the street the Foundation has started a technical college and an applied university with about 2,000 students currently (of whom about 1,300 study applied medical programs). In 2014 they will start even a Faculty of Medicines to locally start training MDs which will have a very positive impact on the future health care in this region of about 1.2 million people.
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