Many Salvadoran hospitals have allowed us to use an operating room for our week of eye surgeries - and they've never charged us for the space or the time they spend to coordinate with our mission. The latest of these happy relationships was with the small National Hospital at Santiago de Maria, where we held our April, 2013 eye surgery week. We always try to return the favor in some way by giving the hospital some useful gifts and a financial donation. When we asked Dr. Gonzáles, the Director of the Santiago de Maria hospital, what would be helpful to them, he swallowed hard and said that they really, really needed a new autoclave (sterilizer). Their old one had given up entirely. We said we'd try, but weren't sure we'd have enough donations to purchase an autoclave of the size they needed.
Happily, when we checked our donations at the end of the year, we did have the funds needed to purchase a new autoclave for Santiago de Maria, and here it is, with one of our favorite nurses showing it off to Kathy Garcia.
The new autoclave will mean sterile instruments for all the surgeries at Santiago de Maria. We can't think of a better way we could have helped the hospital - and helped the needs of the community they serve.
