Spring 2008

by Global Ministries | published on Oct 10, 2014

Introductory Note: MAESTRA is a health clinic project from Friendship Mission, one of the Global Mission partners in Paraguay.

Changes and potential changes seem to be happening so rapidly that it’s hard to write up-dates. I’m always thinking that when a project comes together I will write about it. But then another project comes up and the prior one gets put on the back burner and the delay is prolonged even more. So here is a synopsis of what is happening to date.

Introductory Note: MAESTRA is a health clinic project from Friendship Mission, one of the Global Mission partners in Paraguay.

In July I was introduced to the manager of a business in J.A. Saldivar, a town 20 kilometers south of Asuncion where we have 2 weekly clinics. This is a garbage recycling business that is rather unique. Garbage trucks from the surrounding cities bring their refuse and dump it just like in any garbage dump. But then each load is sorted by a team of 8-10 workers and all of the recyclable material is gathered, weighed, and the team is paid for what they collect. The result is an unusually clean place with a minimum of garbage that needs to be buried.

When the facility was built 3 years ago the company was aware of the public sentiment against having a garbage facility in the neighborhood and as part of their desire to be accepted they proposed to the city that they would build a clinic to provide health services to the neighboring community and the city agreed to staff it. The clinic was built, but continued to remain vacant because the city was not able to keep up to its end of the bargain. The manager asked if Team MAESTRA could provide this service for him. I told him that it would be a nice place to provide our service due to the low income neighborhood, but that there was no income in our budget to expand our services. He then asked, “How much do you need?” I had just completed a 6 month budget so was able to mentally figure our average cost per clinic and told him that it would be about 700,000 guaranies per month. He had no problem with that amount and asked if we could come. I reported back to Rosa Lina the director of Friendship Mission and an agreement and contract was worked out and we started our first clinic on July 25.

This marks a new in-road for Project MAESTRA. If we can continue to find private enterprises that are willing to pay for this service we can continue to grow and not have to rely on outside funding. We must first let time and excellent service do their work and use this good reputation to spread the word and develop new territories.

Speaking of reputation and new territories…most everyone is aware that Paraguay has a new president who is an ex-bishop who is dedicated to helping the impoverished of Paraguay. While this is going to be a long hard road, the changes are already reverberating into the health care system. With all of the changes there is also a new secretary of health. I met her by chance when we went to work at one of our clinics and she was there doing an inspection. She immediately thanked me for the service that we are providing. She was in the process of visiting all of the public health clinics in this zone and already had heard positive words about us from other clinics where we work. She talked about being able to provide medicine for us and I asked that we have a meeting to discuss this and also about other locations that we might be able to provide this service. A week later all of team MAESTRA along with Rosa Lina was sitting in her office. We showed her data that we had gathered regarding the patients that we are seeing including types of illnesses and diagnoses, income levels (78% poverty and 45% extreme poverty), age and gender. She was impressed because the government really has no data regarding this. She has agreed to provide us with basic medication such as antibiotics, anti-parasite drugs, vitamins, blood-pressure medicine and pain relievers. These will be delivered next week when she and her team will meet us at Friendship Mission and we will go to visit 3 health clinics in need of our service.

Yet another project on our agenda is that of a “smooth transition”. Because Marianne and I will be leaving at the end of the year, next week we will add a weekly meeting to our agenda so that we can talk about everything that needs to be done. I am fully confident that Doctor Zulma Perdomo, nurse Delia Lopez, and secretary/receptionist Nelida Lopez can continue to provide excellent service in my absence. I will donate my van to the project and Nelida will be the driver. Delia will take over my duties as project coordinator. They are born and raised rural Paraguayans who have worked there way through school. They are dedicated to this project and are happy to be able to provide this type of service to the very class of people from which they have developed.

When I first came to Paraguay and started working on this project, I was cautioned that a missionary should not start a project that cannot continue if and when he/she departs. Our initial idea was that we would use seed money provided by Common Global Ministries to develop the program. Then with growth and numbers we would be able to be self sustained from the income from our services. It did not take long for us to realize, however, that this could never happen. As long as we are providing this much needed service to people who cannot afford to pay we are never going to have an income that will cover our expenses. Outside funding will always be required for services such as MAESTRA or any other aid to impoverished populations. For this we are grateful to Common Global Ministries and its generous support.

Shalom,

Paul Jacquay

Paul Jacquay serves as a long term volunteer at Mision de Amistad (Friendship Mission) in Paraguay. Paul works as health consultant for the medical department and is a nurse trainer at the Mision de Amistad School of Nursing.