Thanks to so many of you, we finished 2020 in the black! We even have a small surplus which clinic expenses are going through like water through a sieve.
We have to order some medications from abroad now, because some labs here in Nicaragua closed in 2018, and the U.S. State Department has imposed sanctions on Nicaragua. To make it worthwhile to the distributors, we have to order in bulk, as the sellers will not bother with a small order.
As a result, we buy all our birth control implants for the year at once. They are good for three years and it will save us money in the long run, not to mention no unwanted children being born to families barely getting by financially.
We also buy a year's worth of medications for our Parkinson's and epilepsy patients. If you have ever watched someone having a seizure, you can identify with the need to control them for patients. If you have ever seen someone with Parkinson's try to steady their hands to grab a fork, you can identify how desperately people with Parkinson's just want to control their shakes.
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| Chronic Care patient receiving medicine at Nueva Vida Clinic |
With the purchase of the implants and these medications, we are looking at spending an extra $11,400!
We are also needing to vaccinate our Nueva Vida Clinic staff with the two doses each of Hepatitis B vaccine, which will cost $1,950. Nicaragua now vaccinates children as part of its free childhood immunization program, but does not have enough vaccine to cover all the adults, and there is Hepatitis B in Nueva Vida. I know that this need seems outside of everyone's focus on COVID-19 vaccines coming, but Hepatitis B is not curable and is passed through blood. In a health clinic - blood is an issue.
Add to all of that - our lab needs a new hemoglobin testing machine. We have an old, working one, but the machine's reagents are no longer available. Sometimes I get extremely frustrated that the industry has to make old, reliable machinery obsolete. The least expensive machine not in the old unusable style, is $6,500. Yikes!
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| Lab technician Massiel at Nueva Vida Clinic |
If we just laid out all this money, our funds would be gone.
When the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, God sent them manna to eat, but they were not to save the manna, except for use on the Sabbath. We save very little, using what we have as we have it. Some of us worry that if a staff member resigns, we won't have saved the five months' salary of severance pay that the law requires us to pay, and yet we always manage to pay people.
We try our best to keep reserves, but when an expense arises, somehow we always pay for it. Our finances drive business people crazy.
But manna appears when needed, thanks to you and the Provider.
- Kathleen
