New Clinic in Quiroga Being Dedicated Today

Tody – July 9th, 2015, Mano a Mano is dedicating a new clinic project in Quiroga, Bolivia! The base funding for this clinic came from Medical Educators for Latin America (MELA), an organization based in St. Paul, MN focused on improving healthcare with knowledge. MELA has been a long-time partner of Mano a Mano, collaborating on nine International Acute Care Conferences in Cochabamba (with more planned for the future), and volunteering at our St. Paul office. MELA volunteers have traveled to Bolivia to participate in the dedication today.

Quiroga Clinic

Quiroga

Quiroga is a community of 4,300 people in the municipality of Aiquile, province of Compero, department of Cochabamba, Bolivia. It is about 225 kilometers southeast of the city of Cochabamba, or a 5-hour drive from the city. 30% of Mano a Mano’s clinics are between a 3 and 10-hour drive away from Cochabamba – click here for an overview of where Mano a Mano clinics are located.

Working Together to Make These Projects Possible

Every project that Mano a Mano does, including this clinic in Quiroga, depends on many people working together (read more about our partnership model here).

The Quiroga clinic project was a collaboration with:

our counterpart organization Mano a Mano Bolivia
Medical Educators for Latin America
Bolivian Government
Municipality of Aiquile
the community of Quiroga

Thank you to everyone that worked together to make this project happen! Mano a Mano’s network of clinics provides health care access to more than 700,000 Bolivians and is nearing 1 million patient visits each year. The Quiroga clinic joins this network and provides another 4,300 Bolivians with access to health care.

Providing Access to Health Care

With the new clinic, medical professionals working in the community will have a much more comfortable working environment (which is very important for retaining staff in isolated rural communities), and community residents will have regular access to quality health care services provided through the Bolivian Health Ministry. Our clinic program’s approach is that health outcomes can be dramatically improved with simple yet effective interventions, beginning with the basic ability to consistently access quality services in their own communities (here is an overview of clinic activity from second quarter 2014 to give you an idea of what our clinics focus on).

As a Mano a Mano clinic, it will have Volunteer Health Promoter Training and Continuing Health Education workshops provided through our counterpart organization Mano a Mano Bolivia (learn more about our health education & training programs, and an overview of the 2014 programs, here); it will also receive equipment and supplies to ensure that it is fully-furnished, and is connected with Mano a Mano Bolivia medical staff via radio for help with any difficult cases or issues.