Humanitarian Assistance
We offer critical, measured humanitarian aid where we can.
Poverty, now exacerbated by the severe socio-economic crisis in Venezuela, means that small problems can become insuperable obstacles. In these cases, small sums can help to solve a myriad of individual and practical problems that will permit families and the rural community as a whole to flourish. For example, $50 USD can lift a family through an immediate crisis and allow a child to stay in school.
The health of the community depends upon the health and welfare of its individuals and families. There are no short-cuts, but person by person, family by family, generation by generation, we can make a real difference in each and every community we reach.
Public health in Venezuela is undergoing a de facto decline during the current humanitarian crisis, leaving low and middle income people tragically vulnerable to the lack of public services and scarcity and expense of even common medicines and medical supplies. The private sector is also struggling to serve the diminishing middle and working classes that can no longer afford its services.
Families and communities suffer immense stress when even the simplest health problems are not treated. Solvable problems like hernias become overwhelming issues for young men who cannot work or serve in the military or police until they are treated. Fertility becomes not a blessing but a burden for women and families who cannot control it. The most requested operation for children and young men is hernia repair, just as the most requested operation for women is sterilization.
Our Foundation is very fortunate to have dedicated private sector partners that are able to maneuver through difficult circumstances and deliver high-quality medical services. We have expanded our portfolio of medical services beyond reproductive health to include selected ophthalmological, cardiovascular, ENT, pediatric and internal medicine health care as well as facilitating lab work, imaging, CAT scans, biopsies, and other diagnostic procedures for low income clients who can no longer count on the public health system. We perform a variety of surgeries like hernia repair, biopsies, laparoscopic diagnosis, and orthopedic, obstetric, pediatric, and oncologic interventions, offering these services at well below market rates and exonerating costs for selected patients in need.
We have now cumulatively offered through 2023:
1423 Surgeries other than sterilizations
21840 Medical Consultations in primary and secondary health care
4419 Medical Assists with lab work, imaging, biopsies, eyeglasses
We do what we can to help with our limited, efficient resources, but the demand for primary – secondary – tertiary health care is enormous and unfulfilled. The same as with family planning, we began small and have been steadily growing. One by one, we are changing family’s lives for the better with these services. Please support our medical humanitarian efforts here.
We are also honored to collaborate with other local foundations to help their programs work better for low-income clients.
Breast Cancer and Conditions
Fundación Esperanza Rosa (@fundacionesperanzarosa)
We are joining forces with Fundación Esperanza Rosa, a non-profit recently founded by a group of women doctors, nurses and professionals here in Cumana, Venezuela, to treat the growing scourge of breast cancer, with attention to all spheres of women’s reproductive health. Please help us to save the lives of these vulnerable, low-income women!
AUTISM
Facebook Fundapsied Cumaná
This foundation to help educate autistic children was founded by one of the surgeons we work with, and his educator wife who owns and runs a private elementary school which now includes a space for autistic children here.
We offer the following articles that we consider to be accurate descriptions of health care today in Venezuela. The situation has only deteriorated since these articles were published.
REPORT | Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health Study on Venezuela’s Health Crisis
VENEZUELA, THE FACE OF POVERTY
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL // Emergency Exit // Venezuelans Fleeing the Human Rights Crisis
NEW YORK TIMES // Dying Infants and No Medicine: Inside Venezuela’s Failing Hospitals
Aquí hay fotos de tres pacientes que recibieron intervenciones ortopédicas, dos niñas y un bebé. Cada uno de estos casos involucró deformidades que fueron corregidas significativamente con esta única intervención. La niña del medio, de una familia rural pobre, tendrá que usar un aparato ortopédico por un tiempo para restablecer el brazo deformado. El niño a la derecha tuvo sus dedos reparados quirúrgicamente, ¡nota la mejoría! Cada intervención debería cambiar para siempre la vida de estos niños para mejor. Y aquí está el equipo de cirugía responsable. Aplaudimos a los equipos médicos que trabajan con nosotros por tarifas simbólicas, apenas suficientes para cubrir gastos, en un momento en que todos están luchando en Venezuela.
