Health and Wellness Ministries
One of FPE’s volunteer dentists speaks to a Quechua boy’s mother about her son.
Through donations from a White Cross Grant through the American Baptist Women’s Ministry, FPE works with local churches to provide mobile medical and dental clinics around the city and provinces of Cochabamba for those who don’t receive regular care. From September 2018 to present we have attended to over 800 dental patients and over 500 medical patients through these clinics.
A Quechua mother brings her child for a well-baby visit.
Hope for Life(Esperanza de Vida) medical ministry
Dra. Danitza Vargas evaluating an indigenous woman at a clinic with Esperanza de Vida.
FPE has the privilege to work with wonderful local doctors, medical students and other professionals to provide mobile medical clinics for our local ministry partners. Esperanza de Vida, which in English is “Hope for Life Ministries” has been a part of our ministry emphasis for over a decade. We travel to ministries in the city, the surrounding provinces, and a few times each year in the Chapare region of Cochabamba (part of the Amazon Rainforest) and do medical clinics. These clinics serve two purposes.
The first is the medical care itself. Doctors work to do well-baby and well-child visits, as well as attending to the medical needs of the parents and other adults of the community. In 2019, Esperanza de Vida had ten mobile clinics and attended to over 450 patients for regular medical screenings. The second purpose of the medical clinics is to provide the ministries we serve a way to reach into their community for opportunities to do evangelism, Vacation Bible School days with the children and more to share the Gospel with these children and their families.
Pastora Brígida, IM Global Servant Sarah Nash and FPE local director Carmen Flores with a group of doctors at one of the clinics of Esperanza de Vida Medical Ministry
“Thanks to the donations [from churches] of the necessary materials, we are able to perform medical tests and provide treatment,” said Dra. Danitza Vargas when sharing about the impact of the clinics on local communities.
She continues, “One of the biggest health challenges that the mobile medical clinics run into on a regular basis is the effects of domestic abuse. Studies have shown that one-in-three girls under 18 years old have experienced sexual violence and in the marginalized communities and in the rural areas, it is actually closer to one-in-two.” Culturally, this has happened for many generations in a number of Majority World countries and even though great strides have been made in Bolivia to protect women and children, the realities of these types of abuse are still a common health risk. Recently, in one of the mobile medical clinics our doctors worked with a young lady who had contracted what was later found to be Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) which was likely the result of an abusive situation.
Thanks to generous donations from the American Baptist Women’s Ministries’ White Cross offering, the Foundation was able to receive a grant that provided for the clinic and the resources for local volunteer doctors to identify this illness. They were able to properly diagnose and treat this woman’s condition and begin a process of healing for her that would not have been possible otherwise. In 2019, these grants helped provide for all of the medical clinics and a majority of the medications and medical tests we administered to patients.
Smiles of Hope (Sonrisas de Esperanza) Dental Ministry
FPE Project Director, Richard Achu, setting up a dental workstation during a Sonrisas de Esperanza clinic
Like the Mobile Medical Clinics, FPE’s Mobile Dental Clinic Ministry is one of the central ministries that the Foundation provides. Sonrisas de Esperanza works very similarly in that they travel to local ministries and partners with them to do dental clinics primarily for children and the families of the church without access to dental care otherwise. While they are there they also work with pastors and local ministries to provide discipleship materials, art supplies and more. The dentists we work with also spend significant time teaching their patients about effective dental care, providing new toothbrushes and toothpaste for them to use at home.
In 2019, Sonrisas did twenty (20) mobile clinics around Cochabamba, and one weekend trip to the community of Carpani, in the Chapare region of Cochabamba (4 hours outside of the city). They saw over 800 patients in the clinics in 2019. Sonrisas has 24 dentists from all over the city that rotate through the clinics and provide professional level dental care for free to all that they come in contact with through the clinics.
A group of dentists and doctors getting ready for a joint clinic at a local church in Cochabamba.
Our director of dental clinics, Dra. Viviana Lamas writes: “A 53-year-old lady came to a clinic and we tried to perform an extraction and we quickly saw that there was a bigger problem. It was a big surprise to us and it ended up being complicated. We were able to close the wound and help her get more treatment later. When we took the X-ray, we realized that her case was one-in-a-thousand and she needed a more extensive oral surgery.”
“Thankfully, with the help of another doctor, she had the procedure a few days later and I had the chance to follow up with her until she was healed.” She goes on to say, “One of the most difficult moments in dental care is when we see a serious patient and unfortunately there is not much we can do.”
“This happened in December with a four-year old girl in the community of Carpani (4 hours outside of Cochabamba). The girl presented with a dental abscess so severe that it prevented her from opening her mouth or eating. She had a lot of swelling and pain. We did what we could to provide her with some relief, but she needed medical attention and medications.” “We gave her what we could and connected her with a local doctor that would work with her and get rid of the infection and perform the oral surgery needed.” Fortunately, in the clinics we have few cases like these, but because of the clinics, people with serious dental issues can be treated and returned to pain-free life.