The VHC Medical Brigade mourns the loss of Elizabeth Koop, MS, CRNA, known to all as Betsy. She was one of the original volunteers in the Brigade and a founding member of the Rural Village Project (RVP), which has provided clinics, clean water and health education to communities in remote areas of Honduras.

Armed with machetes, five Hondureños make their way up the face of El Montañon – The Big Mountain. It’s the dry season in Honduras, and it’s hot; the men keep to the edge of a stream, sometimes singing, sometimes talking, but never resting. Two hours into their hike, they find their destination blocked by tropical vines and dense jungle growth. They get out their machetes.

Despite the inability to travel to Honduras during this pandemic, the VHC Medical Brigade continues to seek ways to provide for our partners in Comayagua and in the remote villages. Most recently, our team sent a 40-foot container filled with donated supplies and equipment from our warehouse in Virginia for use in local hospitals (La Paz, Hospital Escuela, San Benito Jose, and Sta Teresa) and in clinics (El Ayudante and RVP clinics).

As we continue to navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been so grateful for the ongoing support we’ve received. And while this difficult time has meant we’ve had to change how we’re doing things, we can still report our water projects and healthcare work in Comayagua is moving along!

Over the past week, we were able to deliver food donated by Pack Away Hunger, sterile gloves and oxygen cannulas to our partner hospital Santa Teresa; medications like acetaminophen, zinc, prenatal vitamins and more, donated by the Brigade and Vitamin Angels, to our three mountain clinics; and install a new vaporizer on the anesthesia machine at Santa Teresa.

“I see you are wearing glasses,” Lora said excitedly. “And your eyes,” she continued with amazement, “your eyes are BLUE!”

As Lora looked up from the operating table into Dr. Sarah Merrill’s face, her elation at being able to see was unmistakable.

When Kenny and his mother showed up one morning last November for his physical therapy appointment, they both looked quite bedraggled. 

Omar commented almost apologetically on his own condition - living with colostomy bags and a catheter for five years since a motorcycle accident that crushed his pelvis - when Dr. Ranjit Pullarkat asked him why he’s here this Monday morning for surgery at Hospital Santa Teresa.

Among the poorest of the poor in Honduras, this patient will probably tell our surgical team, as others like him have told our teams in past years, “I have been praying for you every day - for years.”

We train community health workers through a curriculum developed by the Brigade that is customized to address the most common diseases they face. The result is that residents have access to services that otherwise would not be available.

Our rehabilitation team met a 27-year-old woman with severe disabilities through our partnership with the Comayagua Rehabilitation Center (CRIC).

When you live in a remote Honduran village, and the only water you can drink comes from streams contaminated with parasites, you drink it, whether or not you are aware of the risks. There isn't much choice.

If you're like most people, you might think of cataracts as an affliction experienced only by older populations. However, as the leading cause of blindness, cataracts affect one in every 250 children.*