SOS Medical Centres in Paraguay

In Paraguay there are currently three Medical Centres for children and the local community, in San Ignacio.  Medical Centres provide treatment and services for the local community  Below is some information about the Medical Centres that SOS Children runs in Paraguay:

SOS Medical Centres around Paraguay: In-Depth

Hohenau

Description of SOS Medical Centre:

At the SOS Medical Centre, which is run as a mother-and-child clinic, up to 95 patients can be treated per day. The centre consists of six examination rooms and has forty beds for adult patients as well as fourteen beds for infants. Apart from that, there is a laboratory, a pharmacy, a delivery room, an operating theatre for minor surgery, a dentist's office, an x-ray and ultrasound lab, and a ward with six incubators for prematurely born babies. Youngsters from the SOS Children's Village who are doing higher education or vocational training share eight flats in the city of Encarnación. Moving to an SOS Youth Facility is usually the first step towards an independent life outside the SOS Children's Village.

Belen

Description of SOS Medical Centre:

There is also an SOS Medical Centre on the SOS Children's Village site and this is run as a mother and child clinic. Every day, up to 130 mothers and children from the surrounding area are treated.  The SOS Medical Centre is used primarily as a maternity ward but older children suffering from diseases are sometimes also hospitalised. The SOS Medical Centre consists of three examination rooms, a delivery room, two wards for in-patients, a ward for premature babies, two waiting rooms, a social room for nurses, a pharmacy, a laboratory, two houses for doctors, another house for nurses and a service and administration centre. The medical centre concentrates on reducing mother and infant mortality, organizing vaccination campaigns for children and providing information campaigns focussing on family planning and sex education.

Work and achievements:

The year 2009 was full of great achievements for this centre. We have reached 9,720 direct beneficiaries with a total of 22,185 medical consultations, where 7,934 were pediatric, 2,707 pre-natal and 10,477 clinical. This constitutes a growth of 30% with respect to the previous year and exceeding the 2008 projections. We received 9,720 new beneficiaries that constitute 45% of the total consultations of the year, with an increase of 20% with respect to the previous year.

The number of laboratory analyses increased to reach 22,032, with a monthly average of 1,836 and a growth of 25%

San Ignacio

Description of SOS Medical Centre:

SOS Medical Centre San Ignacio is run as a mother-and-child clinic. Up to 25,000 people a year can be treated there. The centre consists of five examination rooms and has 38 beds for adult patients and 24 beds for infants. In addition, there is a laboratory, a pharmacy, a delivery room, an operating theatre for minor surgery, an x-ray and ultrasound lab, and a ward with three incubators and two heated beds for prematurely born babies.