MEDICAL CRISIS: National healthcare here is deeply compromised. When you go to a public hospital, you wait hours, sometimes days, to be attended. They then give you a list of all the medications, syringes, sutures, bandages, antiseptics, x-rays, etc. and so forth, that you may need to be treated, and your family goes from pharmacy to medical supply store looking for these increasingly scarce items or inferior substitutes at prices few can afford. Often you simply cannot get what is needed, and treatment is postponed or the patient dies. Many surgeries are delayed and delayed again, because there are never enough anesthesia, medicines and surgical supplies, or the doctors are on strike because they haven't been paid, or there is no water or electricity or air conditioning or ...
THE FOUNDATION'S RESPONSE: We are working in close alliance with one of the best private clinics in town to offer essential outpatient surgeries at accessible sliding-scale prices that are sustainable for the patient, the clinic and the Foundation. This program has emerged in collaboration with the experienced surgical sterilization team in our family planning program, and is growing rapidly.
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