Medical Services Well child visits: 2,423 Special needs children: 181 Surgeries: 62 Children with chronic conditions: 617 Children with HIV: 72 Therapies: 3,435 Dental: 5,730 Children in red zone: 4 Treatment abroad: 4
The NPHI Medical Services team had a busy year assisting and supporting local staff in the NPH homes. Our team of five doctors and nurses assist in organizing the clinics to be more efficient, manage difficult medical cases, arranging surgeries abroad, consult with international experts, monitor quality standards and provide evidence based treatments—all to reach our goal of Excellence in Healthcare. The Medical Services team works from an integral and comprehensive approach: environment, psychological, preventive and curative. Each Regional Medical Coordinator assists in monitoring children with chronic conditions, vaccinations, coordinating therapies, annual well-child checkups, use of adequate, secure and costeffective drugs to treat most common diseases in each country, procurement of specialized medicines, public health intervention, health education and disease prevention, expired medicine and biological waste disposal and coordination with local specialists. The task is huge, thus we plan our goals to reach every year in order to achieve measurable progress. We established basic indicators to monitor the service in our clinics such as; vaccinated according to age, growth and development progress, nutritional status, infectious epidemics, water test results, death, exclusive use of essential drug list and health education. Our work is always a work in progress, improving and updating the healthcare policy and manual which is a guide for the local staff. Also many of the NPH home’s clinics serve the nearby communities or attend to outside emergency cases. One of the most important accomplishments in 2011 was our “Catchup” Vaccine Project. We were able to provide missing vaccines to every child in our homes. From various sources we received more than $100,000 to fulfill the missing vaccines for our children. We received a donation of second and third line antiretroviral drugs for three HIV+ children from Honduras which were not available in the country. The youths are doing well after receiving the life-saving medicine from the Aid for Aids organization. The yearly value is $35,000.
Our team had been able to arrange complicated surgeries for three children. A two-year-old with Down Syndrome from the Dominican Republic, had open heart surgery in Spain in June. A 19-year-old pequeña from Nicaragua had a kidney transplant in the Dominican Republic. A boy from Mexico suffering from aorta coarctation had local heart surgery. Also, Pfizer Pharmaceutical, donated growth hormone for a 14-year-old boy that was the size of a eight year-old. After three months of treatment he already gain three cm in height. During the first semester we had the fourth NPH International Medical workshop hosted in the Dominican Republic. For the first time, all nine countries were able to participate. The main topic was integral healthcare for children with chronic conditions. Our challenges are great but nevertheless the teams at local and international level make it possible to overcome such challenges. Hepatitis A, chicken pox, scarlet fever and mumps are some of the epidemics we have had to tackle in our clinics as well as tuberculosis. Another major task is eradicating parasites. It is a twofold process because we cannot only give the appropriate medicine to the children but also we have to observe the source of water where he/she drinks. Our 2012 goals are: • Increase /strengthen hygiene and public health initiatives. • Improve the nutrition for malnourished and underweight children. • Implement doctors and nurses evaluation on performance. • Document all related health expenses for each child. • Ensure all homes have a manual for disasters and first response. • Continue to develop protocols which are evidence based. • Electronic medical records. Some options are being evaluated. Thank you so much to all the supporters, volunteers and benefactors and to the children of NPH who are our inspiration to keep working and serving them. “We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair and hopelessness is love; There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread, but there are many more dying for a little love,” Mother Teresa. Pilar Silverman, MD Executive Director of NPHI Medical Services
NPHI 2011 Annual Report 5