HOW OUR MEDICAL CLINICS ARE LEADING THE WAY

OUR MEDICAL CLINICS ARE LEADING THE WAY

withKimberly Celada, Clinic Manager

Kimberly is a graduate in Guatemalan Gastronomy and in Preschool Teaching and is currently studying Business Administration at the Panamericana University in Quetzaltenango. She began working at ODIM in 2020 as Clinic Manager, where she oversees the operations of ODIM's two medical clinics and dental clinic. Tell us a little bit about what brought you to ODIM? What drew my attention to ODIM is the great work envi‐ronment and all the help and education that ODIM offers the communities, as well as the alliances it makes with other organizations, all for the same goal: health. Health is an issue that many people do not attach importance to due to the lack of places to go or how expensive a private consultation is. In ODIM’s clinics, we prioritize our patients and provide them with the resources they need to prevent and treat diseases, which is why it I love working here. What has the vaccine rollout been like in Guatemala? When the vaccines against covid were first developed, it took almost two months for vaccination to begin in Guatemala. When the vaccines finally arrived, there were thefts of doses,

corruption and vaccine loss due to poor equipment and mishandling. To initiate vaccine rollout, the government prioritized groups of the population. The first to receive vaccines were health personnel, but only within the public sector. No one else had access to vaccines. At ODIM we looked everywhere for the possibility of receiving vaccines, but we were denied because we were considered a private organization. In April, we finally received the good news that our clinic staff was eligible to be vaccinated, but it wasn’t until the month of May that the rest of the ODIM staff were able to receive their first dose. Most of the vaccines were donated by other countries, as such, the general public could not choose which brand they wanted; they were vaccinated with whatever was distributed to their local health center. At first, we only had AstraZeneca, then Sputnik. Several months later, Moderna and Pfizer became available. How have the vaccinations been received in the local communities around the lake? When it was time to vaccinate the general public, misinfor‐mation created panic among people and many refused to be vaccinated, fearing that the vaccine contained COVID or that a chip was injected to control them or that the vaccine would cause death. As a result of this, the demand for vac‐cines was initially very low and many doses were lost due to failure to use all of the doses in each bottle. Little by little, sources of information were created to educate the population and achieve acceptance of the vaccine. How has ODIM worked to debunk these myths and provide more education to the community? ODIM held webinars, classes, and produced numerous campaigns. We made videos that were shown on social net‐works and broadcast on cable television. We held educa‐tional workshops for patients and community program par‐ticipants and we trained the ODIM staff so that they themselves could use their example and knowledge to educate their family, friends, and neighbors. We also made an alliance with the Government Health Center of San Juan so that they would install a vaccination center within our clinics during our normal business hours. Thanks to this alliance, community members were vacci‐nated with their first dose in our own Sanjuanerita clinic. Other than COVID-19, what was your secondary focus this year? We are working on a new project together with the Adolescent Health program, which consists of creating informative videos about the different contraceptive methods that we offer. This project is intended to educate people about how the methods work while confronting the fear that exists about using them. We broadcast these videos on local cable and publish them on our social networks so that they have a greater reach. Additionally, we have an alliance with the sexual and repro‐ductive health organization WINGS (ALAS) of Guatemala, which comes to our clinics once a month to carry out days of placement of the copper T IUD and Jadelle, a service that we offer completely free of charge. What are the barriers that women in San Pablo and San Juan La Laguna face in accessing family planning methods and how does ODIM work to address these barriers? In our communities there is still a lot ofmachismo, and we hear of many men forbidding women to use contraceptive methods. There are also myths about becoming sterile if a method is implanted. It is totally taboo to consider that ado‐lescents who are not yet married are having sexual relations. ODIM works hard on this problem through sexual educa‐tion and gender equity programs to teach women that they have full rights to decide about their bodies. From your perspective, why is it so important to offer family planning methods in the communities of San Pablo and San Juan? Because they are communities where there are many young pregnant girls and because there is little education and little attention from the government or other organizations on this issue. Sex education has been left aside when it should be a priority. With education and access to these methods, unwanted pregnancies are prevented, STIs are prevented, and we reduce poverty, maternal and child malnutrition, maternal deaths, and infant deaths. Any last thoughts? I feel proud to work in an organization that helps the com‐munity in many ways, and it gives me great satisfaction to be part of this, as a clinic we are fully committed to providing health and education to people who need it, achieving impact and positive change in our communities.