Medical supplies and equipment needed
During covid, our medical team provided care or education to more than 400 vulnerable people with respect to covid. More than 30 people died in the area (as far as we know - but they weren't tested). Poco a Poco San Pedro rented (at 4,200 pesos each month), borrowed and finally bought a number of oxygen concentrator machines to assist people with their breathing, as they did not want to go the hospital and believed they would die there.
At the early "peak" we were renting 11 machines. We finally ended up purchasing a number of these machines as they have been useful for dengue and renal patients as well. But they are expensive to maintain and calibrate. We need to pay for maintenance on all of them now otherwise they will be useless - but we don't have funding for this (April 2024).
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Thank you to all the people who helped us rent and buy machines. They have saved many lives.
It's difficult to keep this page updated with the urgent supplies that are needed for health related problems in the area. There is there is no pharmacy in San Pedro Itzicán, or in any of the small villages. And people can't afford medicines anyway. But basic cough mixtures, Tylenol, vitamins are all essentials... and nursing supplies.
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The Poco a Poco medical office in San Pedro is the only local place people can go for first aid for minor ailments (they otherwise have to go to the town of Poncitlán by bus or other transport if they have the money for that).
So this is why we are constantly in need of more supplies!
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Since covid hit the medical sector in Mexico, some services that were previously available to low income families, have become unavailable.
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Patients typically paid 500 pesos for hemodialysis before covid. Now they are paying up to 1,800 pesos for each session.
For something as vital as hemodialysis, the increased cost is just not possible for most of the people in the San Pedro area (unless they have wealthy family members in the US who can financially help them).
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We were grateful in 2023 to have renal supplies from CreSer A.C. that were needed by people on home dialysis. But we are still paying a lot of money each month to assist some families that cannot afford their hemodialysis sessions. Renal transplant patients also need their anti-rejection medicine or they will die.
We can't sustain this either, but what can we do?