Physical Health Kenya Project #38106

Medic Outpost Africa

by Medic Outpost, Inc.

Project Report | Feb 16, 2021
Medic Outpost Update

By Larry Hill | Executive Director

Fundraising Drive

Medic Outpost has a goal in 2021 of funding a used training van for our programs. The van will be used to provide onsite training to first responders in rural volunteer EMS and Fire departments in Texas. They are in need especially in these Covid time. Please help us achieve this goal. We are well on our way thanks to a generous donation from one of Medic Outpost's board member, David Price. We desperately need this van to provide our programs to rural Texas and increase our fundraising efforts at sporting events and other fundraising opportunities. Any amount will help so please help us start the year at full speed. If you know any companies or organizations that would be interested in a sponsorship with the van and Medic Outpost, there are opportunities available. For more information please email larry.hill@medicoutpost.or

Medic Outpost News

Happy New Year to all of the Medic Outpost family. I hope all had a happy and safe holiday season. We are planning a big aggressive year in 2021 and we are confident that the worse is behind us and Medic Outpost can get back to work. Here is what is in the works.

News

Medic Outpost is working to ramp up our image and presence in the nonprofit arena. In addition to the training van, we are going to be upgrading our website and hopefully this newsletter. That is all on me. Our goal is to get out to more events and spread the word about our work as the vaccines begin to improve the situation.

Training will start again in rural Chiapas and Hidalgo states of Mexico in late February. Our plan is to go deep into the Jungles of Chiapas and reach those communities that have been cut off from access to medical care because of their association with the Zapatista political movement. Logistics will be a nightmare but with the help of our friends in the Ministry of Health and Dr. Rodrigo Lopez, our newest Outpost team member, we should be able to pull it off. These people are in need and have been forgotten for almost 20 years.

Medic Outpost is very excited about our new program with student doctors. In Mexico, medical students are required to do a year of social service before receiving their medical license. They do this social service in rural clinics that Medic Outpost is training in and helping. Our new program will hire these young doctors for a small stipend to teach our neonatal and first responder programs in their rural communities. This program will expand our reach and increase the numbers of villagers we reach by ten fold. The stipend is small but almost as much as the government pays them so it is good for the doctors and for Medic Outpost. The Medic Outpost trained new doctors will be a valuable asset to the Medic Outpost team in the future. Very exciting. If you would like to help sponsor a village please let me know. It would help us tremendously.

I left his in here from last newsletter because it is a huge focus for us in 2021.

Recurring donations are the life blood of a successful nonprofit so please help us identify entities that would be willing to join us. We do have some benefits for those organizations that participate.

NOW WE NEED HELP FINDING BUSINESS, CHURCH, AND INDIVIDUAL SPONSORS. If your company, church or any individual would like to be involved with a small monthly donation we would appreciate the assistance. Sponsors will receive some nice benefits for their support in addition to helping rural communities. Please contact me if you would like to participate or know an organization that would like to get involved.

The Medic Outpost Christmas Gift program was very successful. We sold Medical Kits that will be donated to rural clinics this year. A special thanks to Malynda Richardson and Megan Hotze Creative for their generous purchases. Those kits are still available if you would like to donate one in the name of a family member or organization.

Permalink

Oct 12, 2020
Medic Outpost News

By Larry Hill | Founder

Everyone at Medic Outpost is wishing all of our followers and friends a safe and happy summer. These are difficult times for everyone none more than our first responders and front line healthcare workers. Please accept our sincere thanks for being out there in the middle of it for all of us. Please help them out and wear a mask.

Medic Outpost is still doing our thing and we have had some success with fundraising over the last months. Thanks to everyone for their support. A special thanks to our recurring donors for their long-term commitment. A few dollars each month is essential to the organization during times like this. Please consider becoming a recurring donor. Medic Outpost's projects in Mexico and Kenya are waiting to take off again when travel bans are lifted and it is safe to get back to work. Our partners in those countries are having some rough times and we are ready to do what we can with personal protective equipment and education on Covid as soon as we have the opportunity.

Medic Outpost has launched the Outpost USA project this month which is focused on doing what we can for under served and remote first responder operations in the U.S. Our goals are to provide personal protective devices such as our Covid Boxes and our Ambulance Tents to volunteer EMS and Fire Services that do not have access to them. This will include rural hospitals and any healthcare facility in need.

Training and education is the

cornerstone of emergency medical services and starting next month Medic Outpost will be providing basic and advanced EMS training to rural EMS services and Hospitals. The Outpost will be providing the training with the help of donations and sponsorships but no organization in need will be turned away. Please help us spread the word on this program and help us look for a corporate sponsor to offset the expense. It benefits everyone.

News

Medic Outpost is out there telling our story to the world and recruiting partners to help us get the goods to where they belong. We have had great talks with a couple of foundations and companies about supporting our efforts. More on that when we have solid news. Our individual donors have always carried the load for us and we are eternally grateful for them.

Rural hospitals in Texas are receiving our Covid Airway Boxes as fast as we can get them out. The "Box Wizard", Board Member David Price has made this possible and we will continue to make them and donate them to hospitals in need. Our focus is primarily rural hospitals with limited resources. The supplies of plastics to make the boxes is now difficult to get due to demand.

Medic Outpost will be teaching certification courses in emergency medicine to rural EMS and Fire departments in the coming months. We will offer advanced cardiac life support, advanced pediatric life support, CPR and AED, Pre-hospital trauma life support, and advanced medical life support to first responders who are in need. We are hoping larger systems and facilities will make a donation to the Outpost for courses but no organization will be turned away if there is need.

Our corporate sponsorship program is in the final stages of completion. We are planning on offering 3 levels of recurring sponsorship for any company wanting to get involved. Companies will receive some nice benefits for their support in addition to helping rural communities. Please contact me if you would like to participate or know an organization that would like to get involved.

We are working on a redesign of our ambulance safety tents that will make them faster to set up and more durable in the field. We are also designing a similar "contraption" for emergency rooms that is faster and more versatile than what most hospitals are using now. If you would like to be a part of this effort please send me an email or give me a call. These devices are very low tech and use materials that are available around the world.

Medic Outpost

Mexico Training

The fact that travel to Mexico is banned or difficult at the moment is not stopping our work there. Dr. Garcia and I are in constant contact about the situation in the project areas and in the larger cities. As you can imagine our plans have to be adaptable to the current situation. We are focusing on the extreme lack of personal protective equipment all over the country and how we can help. Our Covid boxes and ambulance tents can be constructed from available materials there or kits can be constructed and sent from Texas.

Medic Outpost is pushing our efforts with acquiring used equipment for first responders and hospitals in Mexico. We are cleaning the equipment and prepping it to be sent to clinics and hospitals in need there. Hospitals and EMS services usually have a good amount of second generation equipment that is out of service. We have worked out agreements to decommission this equipment to eliminate any potential issues with the donations. Please spread the word on this. We are collecting cardiac monitors, IV pumps, stretchers, AED machines, ventilators, backboards, and other devices. We do not repair items so everything needs to be in working order with all parts and pieces. If anyone would like to donate some warehouse or storage space in Houston, we can use it. The garage is getting a little tight.

Medic Outpost Africa

Our Efforts in Africa are in a holding pattern right now. The Covid situation in Kenya is more difficult to evaluation due to a lack of testing and information. We are in contact with our partners in Chuka Kenya often but information is scarce at best. There are enormous issues with personal protective equipment of all kinds. We are exploring what opportunities there are to help with supplies but we want to make sure our donation dollars are going to do the most good. I will keep you posted on any new developments in our efforts there. This situation is changing by the day.

The Box

The Outpost is continuing to produce the Covid Safety Boxes for hospital ER's and operationing rooms. Our focus is getting these devices to rural hospitals and clinics that are in need of them. Materials are our main issues and the large retail companies have cornered the market on plexiglass and supplies to construct these boxes. Thankfully, other organziations such as the large hospital systems have been able to make up the difference lately. Rural hospitals are still wanting and needing these devices. We have delivered our boxes to hospitals in Alpine,Texas, La Grange, Texas and Ojinaga, Mexico to name a few. We have other facilities that need them so we will keep this effort going for the next few months at least.

‌

Permalink

May 18, 2020
Medic Outpost News

By Larry Hill | Founder

Medic Outpost News-GG report 5/15/20

Medic Outpost News

My sincere apologies for the delay in getting the newsletter out to all of you. Like everyone else, Medic Outpost is trying to find some solid ground in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis. Dr. Garcia and I are in contact several times a week on the situations in the United States and Mexico. I am also in contact with our partners in Kenya and we are working to get them as much information and assistance as we can. As you can imagine, our operations are on lockdown at the moment. When travel restrictions are lifted and it is safe to do so, we will be finishing up our registration in Mexico to become an official nonprofit there and exploring the best ways to help with the Crisis.

There is some good news on the horizon. Medic Outpost is sponsoring an extremely important new device in the fight against Covid-19. A huge thanks to David Price, a Medic Outpost board member and engineer for making it possible. Medic Outpost along with David and others are involved with the develop a safety device for hospitals to use when performing advanced airway procedures on Covid-19 patients. The design is from a Taiwanese doctor and David with the help of Dr. Allison Kellogg and her husband Dr. Trey Kellogg have gotten some prototypes build and they are now in testing in San Antonio Hospitals. There is more information down below. We will be providing those design plans and information free of charge to any medical facility that needs them.

We completed some excellent and valuable training in Mexico a couple of months ago. It was very successful with Dr. Garcia and I providing training to 25 rural doctors and nurses in the State of Guerrero. We also conducted training for 17 indigenous locals many of whom walked several miles to attend the training. Dr. Garcia conducted the training in Spanish and that was translated into the mixtecl dialect for the locals.

News

Unfortunately, Medic Outpost fundraising success has slowed due to the virus. We are hoping to pick back up as soon as we can. Our partners in Mexico and Africa will desperately need our expertise and support in the coming months. Please help spread the word on our work and consider becoming a recurring donor.

The airway safety box ,"The Box", is in testing in San Antonio. These boxes can provide a safer environment for doctors to intubate patients for mechanical ventilation and other airway procedures. The costs are around $90.00 USD for materials and can be assembled in a short time.

We are looking to expand our board of directors to at least 8 in the coming months. I will keep you posted on progress as we go along.

Our corporate sponsorship program is in the final stages of completion. We are planning on offering 3 levels of recurring sponsorship for any company wanting to get involved. Companies will receive some nice benefits for their support in addition to helping rural communities. Please contact me if you would like to participate or know an organization that would like to get involved.

Medic Outpost will be modifying our training schedules for the next few months. Safety concerns will dictate our travel plans to Africa and Mexico in the coming months. We are exploring what we can do to assist with equipment to clinics that are treating Covid-19 patients. The Safety Box and non-touch thermometers are examples of those types of equipment being reviewed.

The Medic Outpost "Save a Ranger" program in Africa will be put on hold until the end of the year. We will reevaluate the program in light of the African health situation as we go forward

Mexico Training

Medic Outpost conducted 4 training sessions in the remote villages of Buenavista and Te Cruz, Guerrero in late February. Our trainings were very successful. Dr. Garcia and I had to travel several hours in a government Health Ministry vehicle to reach these isolated communities. The attendance was much larger than we had planned and included 25 doctors and nurses from remote clinics in the region. We also had several local village people walk many kilometers to attend our community training. The training was conducted in Spanish and translated to the local dialect for the villagers. These tiny one room rural clinics have very little equipment and resources. The doctors and nurses are wonderful but have little or no training in emergency medicine or neonatal resuscitation. They were eager to learn and extremely grateful for the equipment packages we left them. Your support made this possible and they would like to thank you.

The Box

Medic Outpost is involved with supporting the development of "The Box". It has yet to be named so let's just call it the box for now. Medic Outpost board member David Price has been instrumental in the development of this device. The Box is a device designed to protect doctors and nurses who are intubating patients from Covid-19 in the hospital. It provides a barrier between the patient and the doctor but still allows hands on patient care. It will help protect the healthcare workers and decrease the amount of PPE used in hosptial. The material costs are around $90.00 USD and the design is from a Taiwanese doctor named Lai Hsien-Yung. He has donated the design and plans for humanitarian use to the world. The Box is being tested in San Antonio, Texas right now and we are trying to spread the world on the design and plans. A special thanks to Dr. Allison Kellogg and Dr. Trey Kellogg for their support and testing of the device and the good doctor Hsien-Yung. None of this would have been possible without our supporters. Please spread the word.

Medic Outpost Africa

Medic Outpost will be postponing further travel and training to Kenya for at least the next few months. Our partners in Kenya are continuing to use the equipment we left them on our last training in Chogoria. We will continue to monitor the situation and provide support through information and online training. We are also continuing to work to source equipment that can be bought in country and will focus our efforts on the Covid-19 situation. Our thoughts are with the first responders and their families as they form the first line of defense against the virus in addition to running the emergency calls they continue to deal with.

Notes from the Field

What a difference a few weeks make. I was coming back from Mexico at just about that time the world took a drastic and sad turn. Luckily, on the advise of friends I managed to smuggle in some toilet paper.

I hope everyone is safe and well and following the guidelines the experts have chosen. We will get through this and I really feel we will come out stronger and better.

Medic Outpost is not going away. We are continuing the do what we can to help those first responders and healthcare workers in the remote areas. Lives are the most important thing no matter where they are. We are continuing to provide support as best we can in Mexico in cooperation with Dr. Garcia. Our work in Kenya is difficult right now because of distance but will not abandon any or our partners there.

As you might expect, our fundraising has taken a beating which in these uncertain times is understandable. I ask that you continue to help spread the word on our efforts in the developing world and now at home with the "The Box". In a few months the efforts we are putting in here at home will pay off. Unfortunately, the developing world will be in the middle of perhaps the biggest fight of their lives.

Please consider supporting us as much as you can. A small recurring donation of any amount will go a long way. Be careful and safe. Let's all come together again and move forward.

Larry

the founder guy

Permalink

‹ 1 2 3 4 5 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.