Epilogue: Help us build a hospital in Coatepeque

Northridge Church has been sending a team yearly for at least the past 9 years. Each year we do something like what I’ve described above. It is a drop in the bucket. King’s Castle (Castillo del Rey) has a beautiful campus. It also has a full-time doctor (Dr. Boris, who comes out with our and other visiting medical teams), and now about 5 nurses, mostly from the U.S. who are full time missionaries there year long.

Here is a photo of Dr. Boris and me (drinking coconut water)

One of the frustrations of our short visits was diagnosing patients with diseases like diabetes, hypertension, hyperthyroidism, chronic medical and surgical problems like cataracts, chronic skin breakdown and infections. It is impossible to treat this with a single doctor’s visit. They need ongoing care. Many of the older population had cataracts, pterigium and other eye problems that are easily corrected surgically. A cataract operation could take as little as 10 minutes in an equipped operation room with appropriate post-operative care. The people that live in the mountainous (altitude of about 600 meters) municipality of Coatepeque (population of 48,544 living in 126.85 km2). To the best of my knowledge, there is no clinic accessible to these people. The closest hospital is in the city of Santa Ana which is about 15 miles away. Since the population is poor, something more accessible is needed. There are concerns regarding parasites (worms and amoebae) in the drinking and bathing water, high levels of arsenic in the water of the lake. There is a great need for treating injuries, infections and acute health problems before they become chronic. There is an inherent mistrust of hospitals. Most people think that if they go to the hospital, they will never come back alive!

We NEED a hospital in this area. Over the past years, Northridge church and other concerned groups have been donating money and bringing down construction teams. The results are what you see below:

The inside looks like this:

Of course, there is no floor and when it gets hot, the horses on campus come and sit inside. $ 16,000 will allow us to put a tiled floor inside, plumbing and doors and windows.
The hospital is about 120 feet long and 60 feet wide. It will have two floors and an access road.

The next step is to raise about $ 20,000. This will give us a floor and plumbing. Once we have these, we can begin to put in windows and doors and set up electricity. With another $ 60,000 we should be able to get the first floor up and running as a functioning hospital. This will include inpatient beds, an operating room and outpatient areas. King’s Castle has housing where visiting medical faculty can stay. We have a number of physicians, surgeons, nurses and therapists willing to come down for periods of time and donate their services. This is, of course, if we have the hospital up and running. I am picking up this vision and shall be working locally (that is, in Marshfield, WI) to raise funds and support for this project. If you would like to help, email me at aswani.vijay@marshfieldclinic.org or aswaniv@hotmail.com ).