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Communities Served by Buena Vista Brigades: Los Liquidambos, El Retiro, and Las Uvas

Buena Vista Healthcare Access

Buena Vista is a community located high in the mountains near
the municipality of Moroceli in El Paraiso.  Due to its remote
location, Buena Vista has a smaller health center called a CESAR.
CESAR's never have doctors on staff and typically have on nurse.
The nurse staffs the health center Monday through Friday from
about 9am to 3pm and lives in Moroceli on the weekends.
Therefore, their access to healthcare is very limited, not even
being able to get care on weekends and not having access to
doctors.  If they need to see a doctor or dentist, they must
travel the mountainous terrain to Moroceli, the nearest town
with a CESAMO, or a larger scale health center where doctors
and occassionally dentists are on staff.  The trip can take up to
3 hours on foot.  Although there is a bus that comes to the
community, it does not come very often and costs money
that many community members cannot afford.
 

Community Demographics

Buena Vista is home to about 516 people and has about 140
homes, with an average of 3 inhabitants per home.  Buena Vista
is the center  of a larger area including three other communities:
Las Uvas, Los Liquidambos and El Retiro.  The total population
of these 4 communities is over 2,000.  Since the other
communities do not have health centers, they have to travel in
Buena Vista.  Although these are the 3 communities that pertain
to the health center in Buena Vista, there are even more
communities that visit during the brigade to receive
medical care. 

Brigade Site Information

Since space is limited in the health center, we hold brigades at the school. The school is still relatively small, with about 5 rooms. Despite the smaller space, we always run a successful brigade.  Doctors spend an average of 10 minutes with each patient and we are able to provide 5-6 educational charlas a day.  Each brigade sees an average of 215 patients per day. Below are some pictures of the Brigade Site:

Current Community Initiatives

Buena Vista is our most recently community to be selected for our Community Health Workers Program.  From October 2013 until April 2014, a group of about 25 community volunteers received training from our program lead, Dr. Bruce Chevez, on topics such as first aid, how to treat chronic patients, family planning, pregnancy care, burn and wound care, and how to respond in emergency situations.  These skills will help them provide a higher level of healthcare to more community members and relieve some of the workload for health center employees.  They will serve 5 different communities in the area. To learn more, visit the Buena Vista CHW Page.

Community Health Statistics

Below is a chart showing the illnesses treated on our most recent brigade to Buena Vista.

Below is a chart showing the dental procedures performed on our most recent brigade to Buena Vista.

Current Status

Last Visit: 5/27/2015

This past May, a group of students from the Seton Hall University traveled to Buena Vista for their Medical and Dental Brigade.  With 33 student volunteers and the help of local community volunteers, they saw 734 medical patients from 2 different communities over 3 days, as well as 102 dental patients.  They were able to help provide over 20 hours of health education to children and adults in the community.

Visit Other Programs in Buena Vista

Global Brigades strives to implement a model of Holistic Development in communities through a system of collectively implementing health, economic, and education initiatives to strategically meet a community's development goals. Learn more about the other programs being implemented in Buena Vista:

 DentalEngineeringWaterPublic HealthBusinessCHW