Promoting preventive medicine and auxiliary brigades in communities in southern and eastern Honduras

Promoting preventive medicine and auxiliary brigades in communities in southern and eastern Honduras

Honduras. In order to provide medical assistance to the communities, Fyffes and its subsidiary Grupo Sol in Honduras will start from this month the implementation of the Community Medical Brigades project in the south and east of the country, which includes awareness and prevention talks, as well as as medical assistance in 15 communities surrounded by the company’s operations in Choluteca and El Paraíso regions .

The project began this month in Colonia Buena Vista, Marcovia, where 79 people have already been served so far, and will be extended to the other 14 communities in the coming weeks. At least 1,000 people – nearly 500 girls and boys, and the same number of adults over 40 years of age – are expected to develop symptoms of seasonal disease and/or be diagnosed with underlying disease.

Grupo Sol has four medical clinics on its Honduran farms (three in Choluteca and one in Ojo de Agua), three permanent doctors on the payroll, and five company-paid ambulances, including three new units this year. One of the main reasons behind implementing the new Community Medical Brigades is to expand medical care to community members, especially temporary workers who do not have access to farm medical clinics outside the harvest season. Watermelon cultivation.

Community medical brigades include sessions on preventive medicine and care focusing on underlying diseases (diabetes, hypertension, kidney failure), common seasonal conditions (dengue fever, respiratory and gastrointestinal infections), as well as awareness of the benefits of vaccination against COVID-19.

Michael Fleets, Sustainability Coordinator for Sol Honduras, who is leading the project, commented, “This project was developed based on the results of a community needs assessment. In this first experiment, the importance of this initiative for residents can be seen, especially for women with underlying diseases whose chances are In access to medical services is limited and they must leave the community to seek medical help, having to invest time and money. We believe that this project will allow us to better understand health challenges and evolve in the future towards programs with a more preventative and outreach approach to our priority communities.”

Line. Central America and the Caribbean digital newspaper