
MaM rural clinics are built and staffed
by local community volunteers. |
94% of Bolivia’s rural poor live on less than $1 a day, mostly from subsistence agriculture, and buying and reselling produce or items in open markets. Lack of quality education coupled with high unemployment places Bolivia’s rural health care system in great need of improvement. Child mortality statistics are extremely high since childbirths are rarely supervised by a medical professional.
Since 1996, MANO a MANO International (MaM) has provided health care and built more than 99 community clinics with exceptional results: of 7,723 deliveries by their staff, 100% of the mothers survived, and only 29 infants died. Without this care, statistically 50 mothers and 770 babies could have died. MaM plans to build twelve new clinics every year, each with two exam rooms, an area with beds for overnight patients, a bathroom, a kitchen, and one room each for birthing and education, plus living quarters for the physician and nurse. The volunteers from Bolivia’s local communities are the cornerstones throughout the entire process of building clinics, roads, and water systems. The agency’s team of doctors and volunteer Bolivian physicians train and sustain medical staff members.
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