06202016Mon
Last updateFri, 17 Jun 2016 12pm

Lakeside’s female health care center, outreach program motoring forward

“Just imagine, we have found women who have given birth to as many as 15 children and never had a pap smear test,” says Silvia Flores, the director of the non-profit Centro de Desarrollo de Jocotepec (Cedejo) who heads the highly effective health care outreach program launched last year in a dozen lakeshore communities.

Four days a week, Flores and her team of assistants board a well-equipped “clinic on wheels” and head out to destinations stretched between the towns of Mezcala and El Chante. The van parks at village plazas or outside government-run DIF (Family Development Agency) centers to offer free services, such as blood pressure and pulmonary oxygen saturation checks, examinations for early detection of diabetes, breast and cervical cancer and guidance on family planning. 

Some test results are available on the spot.  Clinical findings of the Papanikolaou exams, paid for by Cedejo, are delivered to patients within 22 days. Every other week, women who show symptoms requiring further medical analysis are transported in the van to Guadalajara’s Ramon Garibay Hospital for ultrasound exams provided for a modest charge of 50 pesos each.   

The mobile unit operates under the auspices of Health Outreach for Women, a program sustained by an anonymous benefactor. 

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