Healthcare

Healthcare and Dentistry Services Are Desperately Needed

Since Bridges first trip to Haiti in 2010, the need for our healthcare services has been demonstrated again and again. Our director of field operations, Arnel Eugenio, recounts his first trip:

Upon our arrival in Haiti, we immediately set up the clinics and visited several orphanages. The enormous need for dental care was a surprise. My thought during the pre-trip prep was, I would work triage and help out the medical team. Little did I realize, I would be the busiest provider for this mission. Our host, Linotte Joseph, told me that I was the first dentist to ever set foot in their town. Subsequently, I was to be the only one for several years to come.

In one orphanage, called Ebenezer, there were at least eighty children and most of them ended up in my line. The caretaker told us that their run-down facility was originally built to house about a dozen children, but since the earthquake, people would just drop off children they had picked up, for them to be cared for. Within a few months, their numbers increased. One of the biggest health care issues was toothaches. I couldn’t imagine how all these children were crying at night from toothaches, and with no hope for relief but to ride out the pain. I ended up extracting teeth until sundown and would have kept going if we had electricity.

As the week wore on, the challenges grew. Word got out that a medical team was in town so people lined up for hours to be seen. Our driver, Gustav, complained of a toothache but patiently waited for everyone to be seen and even assisted me by holding up a flashlight and then helping me to clean up. We started to shut down as nighttime set in because it became difficult to see, even with a flashlight. Gustav then asked me when it would be his turn, and I didn’t have the heart to turn him down. I rolled up my sleeves and started what would be a very difficult surgical extraction that took over an hour.

Dentistry in the dark. With no electricity or running water, we had to rely on flashlights to be able to work. I will never forget that first trip.


Medical needs, medicine and pharmacology in developing countries are just as underserved as dentistry. The Bridges Global Missions team always includes medically trained personnel who can meet the needs of the local population.

An example from one of our Haiti missions:

The cholera epidemic had spread throughout Haiti and, without adequate antibiotics, people were dying everywhere. The only two hospitals were in Port-Au-Prince, an hour to the south of Carries, and Saint Marc, an hour to the north.

Our Medical Director, Dr. Jasmine Eugenio, had sent a young mother with a very sick 3 month old baby to St. Marc’s hospital for further treatment. Unfortunately, she was turned away after waiting for hours due to overcrowding from the cholera epidemic. The mother came back to our facility around midnight, begging for us to treat her baby. After a thorough assessment, Jasmine, who is a pediatrician, knew that the baby was in impending septic shock and needed intravenous antibiotics and IV fluids. The mother and baby were placed in one of the hotel rooms and the team proceeded to care for the baby as an inpatient, giving round the clock antibiotics and IV fluids as needed. The baby recovered. This situation reverberated throughout out numerous trips to Haiti. Mothers and community members bringing their sick or dying child to our doorstep for lack of health care in their village. Ms. Josephs hotel often functioned as an urgent care whenever we are there.

Medical Needs Facts

  • The health problems that account for much of the global divide in health—including parasitic and infectious diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and childbirth complications—are concentrated among the poorest people within the poorest countries.
  • In emerging countries, people suffer from preventable health problems—such as infectious diseases, malnutrition, and complications of childbirth—simply because they are poor.
  • Wide gaps in health status between poorer and better-off people are often avoidable and unfair, reflecting different socioeconomic constraints and opportunities rather than different individual choices.
  • Epidemics occur as an aftermath of disasters and catastrophes and often emerging countries are unable to control due to financial and socioeconomic reasons
  • Many initiatives to improve the health of the poorest people have been unsuccessful
  • For more than 1 billion people worldwide living on less than US $1 per day, health services and modern medicines are still out of reach.
  • The diseases that affect the poorest people attract relatively little research and development spending worldwide.

What We Do

  • First responders
    • Since 2010, in disasters and catastrophes that have occurred in Haiti and the Philippines we have sent teams as first responders to address the aftermath. This team assesses the needs of the areas and this data is used to plan future missions.
  • Promoting Primary and Essential Health Care
    • Our medical team provides basic primary care to neglected areas. Our team is composed of internists, pediatricians, nurses, allied health professionals and educators. Aside from infectious diseases, we provide management for common chronic illnesses such as asthma, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, malnutrition and women’s health issues. In this regard, we have provided medications and resources for thousands of patients.
  • Developing Partnerships
    • We work closely with the local leadership, government and health care staff to support them to deliver health services to poor and vulnerable segments of society even after we have left.
  • Mobilizing Community Resources
    • Recent missions have mobilized community resources in innovative ways to improve the health of the poor. These approaches have included training of community health workers through health fairs, the involvement of traditional leaders, and local delivery of services.

Our Impact

  • We bridged the gap between the need for health care and gaining access to it.
  • Through the concept of “Boots on ground” we have hand delivered thousands of medication to thousands of patients.
  • We prevented infections and epidemics resulting from natural disasters through first responders, medical management and education.
  • We provided basic medical equipment to local facilities and their satellite clinics
  • We trained more than a hundred health care workers on the importance of clean water, handwashing, dental care, personal hygiene, infection control specifically malaria and cholera. These HCW were also trained on basic medical skills such as: taking temperature and blood pressure, point of care for diabetes and the use of nebulizers.


How Can You Help?

  • Donate today and help us provide medical care to villages and areas of our mission trips.
DONATE NOW

Dental NeedsFacts

  • People in developing countries are burdened by a significant number of oral diseases. The situation is further aggravated by poverty, poor living conditions, lack of dental awareness, and the absence of appropriate policies and funding to provide basic oral health care.
  • According to the World Health Organization, oral diseases like dental caries (tooth decay), periodontitis, and oral and pharyngeal cancers are global health problems in both industrialized and developing countries, especially among poorer communities. An estimated 5 billion people worldwide suffer from dental caries.
  • The most important challenge is to offer essential oral health care within the context of primary health programs. Community empowerment, harmonization, and organization techniques need to be applied according to the primary health care concept.
  • Oral health care is virtually nonexistent in rural areas of most developing countries, where more than 80 percent of the population lives. Recently, community-based oral health programs have been initiated in some countries to fill the gap. These programs give more emphasis to oral health promotion and prevention of oral diseases than to treatment of the consequences.

What We Do

  • As a primary service in the acute phase of disaster relief, we provide emergency dental treatment to address pain and oral infections.
  • We place a strong emphasis on preventative care. We provide dental hygiene instruction, fluoride treatment, and oral hygiene aids.
  • The portability of our equipment allows us to deploy to remote or neglected areas where dental treatment is scarce or non-existent.

Our Impact

  • As part of our first responders our dental providers offered emergency dental treatment
  • We provided preventative care and education to thousands of patients

How Can You Help?

  • Donate today and help us change the oral health of the villages and areas of our mission trips.
DONATE NOW

Dental Needs


Facts

  • People in developing countries are burdened by a significant number of oral diseases. The situation is further aggravated by poverty, poor living conditions, lack of dental awareness, and the absence of appropriate policies and funding to provide basic oral health care.
  • According to the World Health Organization, oral diseases like dental caries (tooth decay), periodontitis, and oral and pharyngeal cancers are global health problems in both industrialized and developing countries, especially among poorer communities. An estimated 5 billion people worldwide suffer from dental caries.
  • The most important challenge is to offer essential oral health care within the context of primary health programs. Community empowerment, harmonization, and organization techniques need to be applied according to the primary health care concept.
  • Oral health care is virtually nonexistent in rural areas of most developing countries, where more than 80 percent of the population lives. Recently, community-based oral health programs have been initiated in some countries to fill the gap. These programs give more emphasis to oral health promotion and prevention of oral diseases than to treatment of the consequences.

What We Do

  • As a primary service in the acute phase of disaster relief, we provide emergency dental treatment to address pain and oral infections.
  • We place a strong emphasis on preventative care. We provide dental hygiene instruction, fluoride treatment, and oral hygiene aids.
  • The portability of our equipment allows us to deploy to remote or neglected areas where dental treatment is scarce or non-existent.

Our Impact

  • As part of our first responders our dental providers offered emergency dental treatment
  • We provided preventative care and education to thousands of patients

How Can You Help?

  • Donate today and help us change the oral health of the villages and areas of our mission trips.
DONATE NOW

Medical Needs


Facts

  • The health problems that account for much of the global divide in health—including parasitic and infectious diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and childbirth complications—are concentrated among the poorest people within the poorest countries.
  • In emerging countries, people suffer from preventable health problems—such as infectious diseases, malnutrition, and complications of childbirth—simply because they are poor.
  • Wide gaps in health status between poorer and better-off people are often avoidable and unfair, reflecting different socioeconomic constraints and opportunities rather than different individual choices.
  • Epidemics occur as an aftermath of disasters and catastrophes and often emerging countries are unable to control due to financial and socioeconomic reasons
  • Many initiatives to improve the health of the poorest people have been unsuccessful
  • For more than 1 billion people worldwide living on less than US $1 per day, health services and modern medicines are still out of reach.
  • The diseases that affect the poorest people attract relatively little research and development spending worldwide.

What We Do

  • First responders
    • Since 2010, in disasters and catastrophes that have occurred in Haiti and the Philippines we have sent teams as first responders to address the aftermath. This team assesses the needs of the areas and this data is used to plan future missions.
  • Promoting Primary and Essential Health Care
    • Our medical team provides basic primary care to neglected areas. Our team is composed of internists, pediatricians, nurses, allied health professionals and educators. Aside from infectious diseases, we provide management for common chronic illnesses such as asthma, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, malnutrition and women’s health issues. In this regard, we have provided medications and resources for thousands of patients.
  • Developing Partnerships
    • We work closely with the local leadership, government and health care staff to support them to deliver health services to poor and vulnerable segments of society even after we have left.
  • Mobilizing Community Resources
    • Recent missions have mobilized community resources in innovative ways to improve the health of the poor. These approaches have included training of community health workers through health fairs, the involvement of traditional leaders, and local delivery of services.

Our Impact

  • We bridged the gap between the need for health care and gaining access to it.
  • Through the concept of “Boots on ground” we have hand delivered thousands of medication to thousands of patients.
  • We prevented infections and epidemics resulting from natural disasters through first responders, medical management and education.
  • We provided basic medical equipment to local facilities and their satellite clinics
  • We trained more than a hundred health care workers on the importance of clean water, handwashing, dental care, personal hygiene, infection control specifically malaria and cholera. These HCW were also trained on basic medical skills such as: taking temperature and blood pressure, point of care for diabetes and the use of nebulizers.


How Can You Help?

  • Donate today and help us provide medical care to villages and areas of our mission trips.
DONATE NOW

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