Hands of Hope Medical - Help for the Helpless

This morning, six-year old Marcelo died. Needlessly. (details below)

 

Hands of Hope Medical Mission in Guatemala - our clinic, is 8 miles off the main highway. Situated in the small village of San Rafael, we provide primary medical care to three villages, a total of 10,000 impoverished Indigenous Mayan people. We have been continually operating since 2001, and rely on individual donations to cover all operating costs of $11,000 a month. We are a private non-profit.

 

As a registered nurse, I work with a Guatemala medical doctor and a staff of eight.

 

This little boy in the photo above, Marcelo, died this morning. He was six years old. He came in about two weeks ago with a wart on the back of his hand. I told the mother not to worry, it was not dangerous and will most likely go away on its own.

 

An alcoholic who doesn't properly care for his family, the father decided to cut out the wart using a razor blade. The boy screamed in pain, but the father insisted he will be ok. The cut quickly got infected, and the father put agricultural insecticide on the cut "to kill the germs".

 

The father didn't want anyone to know what he did, so he didn't want to take the boy to the hospital. But he finally did, after four days of the boy being in writhing pain.

 

For the last week, Marcelo has been hospitalized;  intubated and struggling to breathe, with tubes out of his back to help drain his lungs. Terrible and sad.

 

Marcelo's mother, Ingrid, stayed in the hospital to care for Marcelo, which meant her new baby had to stay with her sister. Her sister tried to breastfeed her baby and Ingrid's baby in vain but didn't have enough milk. So we have been providing formula to help keep the baby's weight up.

 

At 6:50 this morning, I got a call that brave little Marcelo had died.

 

I feel devastated. I cried. This mother is devastated. She was crying. The father has gone into hiding because he knows the police and child services are coming for him. He will be arrested for child abuse. 

 

 

WE ARE ASKING FOR DONATIONS to help this family and maintain the clinic operations.

 

Thank you for helping us to help Rodrigo & Ingrid and her family, and, thousands of others in situations.

 

Faithfully yours,

Anita Giagnocavo