2 New Clinic Projects Dedicated Last Week

Last week, our counterpart organization Mano a Mano Bolivia dedicated 2 new clinic projects:

Guitarrani Clinic

Learn more about this project here.

San Jacinto Clinic Expansion

Learn more about this project here.

Partnership Model

With these 2 clinics, Mano a Mano has now built 141 clinics – which have had more than 5 million patient visits since 1999 when the program began. Our health program has been able to have a huge impact in rural Bolivia with a very limited budget, which we are only able to do by using  a partnership model that allows us to stretch our resources as far as possible:

• Our staff at Mano a Mano Bolivia manage the project from start to finish on the ground in Bolivia, and provide continuing health education to the medical staff and training for volunteer health promoters in each community.
• Mano a Mano International Partners in the US helps to raise funding that serves as the seed money for the project and ships donated medical supplies and equipment that help ensure quality care and keeps cost down by not having to buy all of the equipment.
• The community provides unskilled volunteer labor, a plot of land for the clinic, and some funding.
• The local municipality provides a significant portion of funding (in most clinic projects about 20-35% of the total project costs are paid for by the local community and municipal government).
• The Bolivian Health Ministry provides a permanent line item in their budget to pay for the doctor, nurse, and/or dentist salary – 82% of the 450+ medical staff salaries in Mano a Mano clinics are paid for by the Health Ministry. Patient visits by expecting mothers and children up to 5, along with vaccinations and some medications, are funded by the Health Ministry.

These projects would simply not be possible without the support of all of these different groups, coming together to improve health for an entire community in Bolivia.

And each clinic is truly sustainable – once a project is complete, all ongoing funding comes from Bolivian sources. Mano a Mano does not have ongoing costs for any clinic project, which allows Mano a Mano to focus on trying to reduce our backlog of 148 active community requests for a clinic in their community. (We do continue to provide medical supplies and equipment, as well as continuing education, volunteer health promoter training, and regular radio contact with our Cochabamba office.)

Thanks to everyone that helps make these projects possible!