Guatemala, Year 2, March 11-22, 2024

This year, CHIMPS expanded its reach by sending 2 teams to Santiago over a 2 week period in March. We were able to increase our outreach in coordination with our partners at Hospitalito Atitlan in Santiago. Group 1 arrived on March 9 and set out to work from March 11 to 15. This group comprised of a pediatrician, an urgent care pediatrician/internist and a pediatric pulmonologist worked with children and families in outreach clinics in San Pablo, San Pedro, San Antonio Chacaya as well as a return to support our friends at ADISA (center which serves children and families with developmental differences). They met the needs of children with nutritional, developmental, dermatologic, gastrointestinal and pulmonary challenges. Thanks to the generous donations of donors, we were able to purchase and deliver high yield medications. It was especially meaningful for our pediatric pulmonologist to reach children with chronic pulmonary problems; providing specialty inhalers and teaching families proper administration. Unfortunately, one of the greatest threats to all people, but especially children, in Guatemala, is pollution. Our pediatric pulmonologist also provided a “charla” (talk) for staff at Hospitalito Atitlan on the Pediatric Respiratory Exam .

“Week 1” group with one of our local partners at Adisa

Week 2 was comprised of 2 general pediatricians, an urgent care pediatrician and 2 pediatric nurse practitioners. This group spread outreach to Aldea Cerro de Oro, Clinica de San Juan, Cooperative Atitlan, and a day in the clinic at Hospitalito Atitlan. They met children and families in a local school. They addressed concerns about general health and nutrition, growth, development, and common pediatric gastrointestinal, infectious, dermatologic and hematologic issues. One of our pediatricians provided a charla on Nutrition in Young Children and our pediatric nurse practitioners brought expertise in hematology and provided a charla on Iron Deficiency Anemia in Children to staff at Hospitalito Atitlan. Another one our pediatricians was able to meet with a group of Promodoras to review management of childhood illnesses, interpretation of symptoms and when to seek health care outside of home.

Words of wisdom on the wall at the school where we provided outreach

Part of the “Week 2” group waiting for a water taxi to San Juan (blue bags filled with supplies and medications)

All in all, it was a very enriching trip and we felt that we continued to navigate and understand the landscape and needs of the local population. We continue to appreciate our partnership with Hospitalito Atitlan and plan to continue to identify global health challenges and our role as we humbly enter into the land and lives of those we seek to know and understand and serve.

Guatemala April 9-15, 2023

A long awaited, and very successful trip to Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala finally occurred in April 2023. Santiago is home to close to 50,000 indigenous Tzutujil Maya, most of whom cannot afford medical care. Due to the COVID pandemic, the CHIMPS group had to cancel their first trip to Guatemala scheduled for April 2020. CHIMPS donated the funds it raised for the 2020 trip and shipped the medical supplies group members collected to Hospitalito Atitlan, the small non governmental, non profit hospital in the area.

The April 2023 group was comprised of nine medical volunteers, including four general pediatricians, a pediatric pulmonologist, a pediatric resident, an urgent care pediatrician/internist, a family practitioner, and a pediatric nurse practitioner. We worked alongside staff and community members to augment the relatively scarce pediatric services to close to 400 children in the week we were in Santiago and neighboring communities. We helped staff outpatient clinics at Hospitalito Atitlan, Hospital Greg Schaefer in San Lucas, village clinics in Cerro de Oro, Chacaya, a local governmental health center, CAIMI, and the coffee Finca de Olas Moca. We also saw patients at ADISA, a center for children with developmental disabilities in the region. In all of these sites, pediatricians are needed to treat and identify children who need follow up and specialty care.

Hospitalito Atitlan is a new CHIMPS partner, and was chosen because of the need for pediatric services in the area, the ability to collaborate with a community institution that knows the needs of the Mayan patient population well, and the ability to provide continuity of care.

We will be making another trip to Santiago Atitlan in 2024.

Success in Liberia

CHIMPS continues to explore partnerships with organizations doing work with underserved communities in developing countries. CHIMPS was founded on partnerships with groups in El Salvador, but instability of local NGO partners and increasing violence resulted in terminating that work in 2015. In addition to some members starting to work in Guatemala, others shifted their work to Liberia where they have worked with Liberian pediatricians to develop a social and health support program for teen mothers and their infants that is currently operational at two sites in Liberia. With support from US pediatricians Dr's Elinor Graham, Maggie Wheeler and Patricia McQuilkin, Liberia's Enhanced Well Child Care (EWCC) Staff has put together a manual about how to establish an enhanced well child care program for teen parents and their infants which is found in the Resources section. CHIMPS has also functioned as the US fiscal agent to raise funding to expand this project to additional sites in Liberia. An overview of this project is found in this presentation that the Liberian staff gave to the International Pediatric Association. The CHIMPS-supported programs have continued through the pandemic at two main teaching hospitals for Pediatrics in Liberia and a similar program has been started at a third teaching hospital that hosts Liberian physicians who are training to become specialists in Family Medicine. The economy in Liberia has taken a downward spiral from the global impact of the pandemic and the EWCC staff report marked increases in malnutrition in the infants of teen mothers.

Developing Sustainable Programs to Support Liberian Teen Mothers and Their Infants

Conditions in coffee plantations near Hospitalito Atitlan

Read more about the impact of the coffee industry in Guatemala:

Why Are So Many Migrants Leaving Guatemala? A Crisis in the Coffee Industry Is One Reason

Current Activities

CHIMPS is sending six pediatricians to El Hospitalito in Santiago Atitlan (https://hospitalitoatitlan.org/ ) in April 2020. This will be our first formal activity at this site although CHIMPS members have gone there to do a site visit and to work individually for the past 2 years. Hospitalito Atitlán is a small private nonprofit hospital serving 75,000 Maya living on the southern shore of beautiful Lake Atitlán in the Guatemalan highlands. The hospital provides a full-range of preventive and clinical health services with an emphasis on women and children and has the only 24/7 emergency and surgical obstetrical care for patients within a two hour travel radius as well as a 24-hour lab, orthopedic services, and general surgery and anesthesia. Many of their patients cannot afford care. In 2018, the hospital provided $205,305.00 in free and discounted medical care in the hospital and in community outreach clinics. It receives donations of money and equipment from a range of NGOs, and relies on teams of volunteer specialists many of whom come from the US to help deliver health care.

Dr. Sarah Bergman Lewis, a pediatrician from Seattle has worked there as a volunteer during the past 2 years and focused on community outreach to very poor families some with medically complex children and all with little access to health care. Our team will continue this work as well as do in-service trainings for hospital staff. Here is an article in their newsletter about Dr. Bergman’s work: