We have kept ourselves quite busy, we are working in two different shifts to ensure that the hospital and clinic will not close if someone of our staff turns positive to Covid – 19. We have been doing follow up of our patients through clinical consultation at the Moore Center when needed. We did 12 cast changes under Anesthesia on orthopedic patients in April. With all the precautions, we have continued to support our patients with cleft lip and palate through our nutritional program. Some patients are still able to come to the Moore Center (the ones that live nearby), and we are able to deliver care to distant patients that can’t travel to the Moore Center through other friend NGO’s.
We started a small telemedicine program through Whatsapp and phone calls (is what our patients can do), and we have been able to follow up our ophthalmology patients, cleft lip and palate, and orthopedic patients, as well as providing education to all families. Our staff as well have been working on updating all our protocol to the new normal, and reviewing protocols so that we will be ready when the time comes for the first team to come back. We have received an Invitation from the Annual International Pediatric Conference of Herrera Llerandi Hospital (the biggest pediatric conference in Guatemala), to participate in this year’s conference. Due to pandemic it will be hosted through online webinars on August 25-27. The Moore Center will host the topic of “Orthopedic diagnosis for pediatricians”, and Dr. Carlos Navas and Dr. John Williams will be presenters.
Ligia Figueroa – Medical Director of the Moore Center