HEALTH CLINIC
Since 2008, basic health care in Ecuador is provided free-of-charge, including doctors' visits and basic surgeries and medications. However, the high demand of patients strains the public hospitals. The ability to get even basic government-provided health care services in the indigenous communities, like San Pablo, is very limited.
In 2005, the founders of ECUADOR QUILT helped to fund the construction of a medical clinic in San Pablo. Dedicated in January 2006, it is managed and run by three Catholic Sisters who are nurses. The services provided include OBGYN, Pediatrics, Dentistry and general medicine. Each day, a doctor is in attendance. Friday is pediatric and Saturday is OBGYN day. Patients are asked to pay three dollars per visit but no one is turned away for lack of payment.
The clinic is impeccably clean and a welcoming facility where patients wait comfortably and can be seen by staff. Approximately 3,000 residents of the community are registered at the clinic and an average of 40 patients are seen each day during the normal visiting hours.
In 2005, the founders of ECUADOR QUILT helped to fund the construction of a medical clinic in San Pablo. Dedicated in January 2006, it is managed and run by three Catholic Sisters who are nurses. The services provided include OBGYN, Pediatrics, Dentistry and general medicine. Each day, a doctor is in attendance. Friday is pediatric and Saturday is OBGYN day. Patients are asked to pay three dollars per visit but no one is turned away for lack of payment.
The clinic is impeccably clean and a welcoming facility where patients wait comfortably and can be seen by staff. Approximately 3,000 residents of the community are registered at the clinic and an average of 40 patients are seen each day during the normal visiting hours.
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The facility includes:
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Once a year, medical professionals from Houston, Texas, volunteer their services to the needy and poor of San Pablo and surrounding areas of Ecuador. In the week they spend there, they perform surgeries and services for the needy, free of charge. Each year, by the end of this week, up to one hundred surgeries are performed on desperately needy patients. Without the clinic built by Ecuador Quilt, these services could not be so easily organized.
NUTRITION & CARE FOR THE CHILDREN
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A major mission of ECUADOR QUILT is to assist the needy and disadvantaged children particularly within the indigenous community of San Pablo. With funding from ECUADOR QUILT, INC, 6 day care centers have been constructed and have been fully operational for a number of years. Each center has a full kitchen, adequate bathrooms, a shower and an outside wash basin. There are cribs and mattresses, as needed, for naps for the younger children. They now also have an outside play area with playground equipment.
Today, an average of 175 children, ages 2 to 5, attend these centers. Centers operate from Monday through Friday, every week, from 8 am until 4 pm. The children receive healthy meals - breakfast, a mid morning snack, dinner at noon and a snack at 3 pm. Often, this is the only food the child will eat that day and attendance is as much about nutrition for the children as it is about safe care during the workday. Caring local people staff the day care centers and the government provides much of the cost of running the center, once it has been constructed, with the balance of food and operational funding from ECUADOR QUILT. The largest center has 65 children and a staff of 10 full-time care givers including one cook for each 20 children. |
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With its close proximity to the equator,
San Pablo, Ecuador experiences intense sunshine and heat every day, with very little rainfall and few trees in this sea shore community. Shade, created for this play area, provides an essential oasis for mid-day playtime. |
Former Day Care Center
Former Bathroom Facilities
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These changes are in stark contrast to the way that Child Care was handled in the past.
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