Partnerships for Sustainability Global Healing recently attended the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) 2020 Partners Meeting in Washington, DC. Our partnership with USAID/ASHA stems from the collective work we are doing with them, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Jo Ann Medical Center in Tbilisi, Georgia, to build the first Pediatric Oncology/Hematology Care Center in the country. Through these partnerships, we are making childhood cancer a treatable disease in Georgia. The theme of this year’s conference was “Financing Self-Reliance.” During the event, there were presentations from various agencies within USAID, such… read more →
Life is always challenging for a child living with a chronic illness. Still, it’s particularly hard in places where healthcare resources are scarce. Because of people like you, children and mothers around the world gain access to quality health care from skilled volunteer medical professionals who do additional training with local clinicians on current best practices. Without Global Healing’s Roatan Volunteer Pediatric Clinic (RVPC), children with threatening health conditions may not receive the life-saving care they need. Joel, who lives on the island of Roatan in Honduras, was diagnosed with a medical condition that affects his red blood cells. This condition… read more →
Creating Sustainable Improvements in Patient Care at Vietnam National Children’s Hospital (VNCH) Cami Rutledge loves her job. Having happily transitioned from accounting to nursing 17 years ago, she still finds great joy in her work. Yet, says Cami, “having been in the ER a long time, you get a little burned out.” After spending two weeks with Global Healing in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) of Vietnam National Children’s Hospital (VNCH) in Hanoi, Cami returned to her job at UCSF with renewed appreciation for her calling. “The experience with Global Healing totally rejuvenated my love for nursing,” Cami said.… read more →
Global Healing is fortunate to have had many wonderful volunteers and supporters over the years. In December 2018 we will say farewell, and an enormous thank you, to one of our most dedicated: Alice Gruber, who will be retiring from the board after nearly 15 years with the organization. After Global Healing board member Dr. Arup Roy-Burman saw the need for outpatient pediatric care on the Honduran Bay island of Roatán and established the Roatán Volunteer Pediatric Clinic (RVPC) with Global Healing in 2003, he needed volunteers to get it up and running. He soon met Alice Gruber, a pediatric nurse, and… read more →
From Manhattan Island to the Bay Islands of Honduras: One Pediatrician’s Experience is a Study in Contrasts Upon arriving in Roatán to spend four weeks with Global Healing last January, Dr. Jamila Williams was struck by the beauty of the island. Surrounded by warm Caribbean waters and dotted with tropical hilltops, Roatán is the largest of the Bay Islands of Honduras, drawing tourists from around the world. In stark contrast to the lush surroundings, public health resources are extremely limited on the island, with only one public hospital and two public outpatient clinics for a population that can reach 80,000.… read more →
As soon as she met the neonatal nurses she would be training for the next two weeks at the Vietnam National Children’s Hospital (VNCH), Mary Le was impressed. In preparation for her second trip to Hanoi as a Global Healing volunteer in 2016, Mary had carefully prepared a lot of training material, including 15 slide decks. Not only had the hospital staff translated all of the training material into Vietnamese, they had also printed and bound it into books for each of the nurses who would be participating in the training. “I’d never seen anything like it,” Mary says. “Everyone… read more →
Update from February: Joel continues to have improving health with increased tolerance of activity and greatly improved breathing. He had been receiving nightly infusions of chelation therapy to remove excess iron from his body. His improvement is related to decreased iron deposition in his vital organs such as his heart and liver. Joel did have lymph node infections in his groin secondary to frequent needle placement in his thighs for the nightly infusion. Although Joel and his family were doing a vigilant job of placing the needle under clean conditions it is not surprising that infection was a risk without running… read more →
Her first morning in Roatán, Honduras, Lia Thompson stood on the island’s one paved road at 7 a.m. hailing a taxi. “I was a little overwhelmed at first,” Lia says with a laugh, “but it’s actually really easy. You just stand on the side of the road you want to go down. It’s a cool little island.” Soon enough, a cab came along and took Lia to the Roatán Volunteer Pediatric Clinic (RVPC), where she would spend the next five weeks as a Health Education & Advocacy Liaisons (HEAL) intern. A health science major at Furman University in South Carolina,… read more →
Find out what inspired Global Healing’s founder Jo Ann McGowan, and how one person can change the world through compassion and determination. Who was Jo Ann McGowan? Jo Ann McGowan was the founder and executive director of two nonprofit organizations located in Northern California, Heart to Heart International Children’s Medical Alliance and Global Healing. She dedicated the later part of her life to ensuring that no child would die from a treatable congenital heart defect, and her legacy lives on in the work of the organizations she founded. What inspired Jo Ann to take action? Jo Ann was inspired by… read more →