What if we could Provide care for vulnerable children and their families and train high-quality healthcare providers where they live?
WE CAN
Texas Children’s global health programs in Latin America provide a holistic approach to caring for children, women and families with three primary goals: to reduce maternal and under-5 mortality among the most disadvantaged people, improve health system responsiveness to these groups, and catalyze sustainable change that focuses on socioeconomic factors that shape a community’s health, like economic opportunity and education.
The programs focus on access to care within the communities we serve. We bring providers and services to these communities, mindful of our visitor status and respectful of their local cultures and traditions. Through ongoing “wisdom dialogs,” we have gradually earned the trust of these communities, allowing us to expand the availability and utilization of high-quality healthcare for children and women, which has had a significant impact on their health outcomes.
Like our other initiatives, the Latin America programs emphasize developing the ability of local professionals and community leaders to detect and manage common conditions affecting their society. This “capacity-building” work includes training both local communities and health systems to meet and sustain their own healthcare needs.
Give to Latin America Programs
Thank you for supporting the Texas Children’s Global Health programs in Latin America. Your gift helps us enhance access to care, build local healthcare capacity and create sustainable improvements in underserved communities.
Our Mission
The Texas Children’s Global Health programs in Latin America strive to improve the health of vulnerable populations bY:
Identifying the diseases and at-risk groups and treat them before the occurrence of serious or irreversible harm,
Building local capacity that ensures increased access to high quality, sustainable child and maternal health services, and
Partnering with local institutions, both public and private, to catalyze a team-based approach to problem solving and amplify our impact on those we serve
THE CHALLENGE
Colombia
In rural Colombia, indigenous communities and refugees carry a heavier burden of disease and have a higher risk of dying than the rest of the population. They also lack access to basic health services, clean drinking water and necessary nutrition.
Fundacion Baylor Colombia seeks to reduce the disproportionate disease burden affecting these communities through direct care, identification of high-risk individuals, building local healthcare capacity and activities that promote determinants of good health and economic wellbeing.
Argentina
As rural communities in Argentina experience the disruptive transformation of their economies, their health needs grow in volume and complexity that require greater agility from public health systems to meet those needs.
Fundación Baylor Argentina strives to focus on the most vulnerable members of these communities in transformation – children and women – to meet needs that might otherwise go untended. Our pediatricians, obstetricians, general physicians and health professional staff focus on resolving the health and education needs of the population and the professionals serving them through screening, prevention, treatment, teaching and outreach programs within the communities themselves.
Where we work
colombia
The Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation-Colombia (Baylor-Colombia) aims at improving the lives of indigenous mothers and children who live north of Riohacha on the Guajira peninsula of Colombia along the Venezuelan border.
The Wayúu are the largest indigenous group in Colombia. They live in remote areas far from health and other services, largely in family groups. It is a harsh environment, suffering from long-term drought and few natural resources. Severe malnutrition is a common underlying cause of many illnesses we see, exacerbated by lack of access to health care.
In addition to providing physicians, social workers and nutritionists, the program trained a team of Wayúu women to World Health Organization standards to work as health promoters in the communities. They identify life threatening illness in at-risk pregnant women and children, launch initial treatment locally, and refer ill and at-risk patients to health facilities for additional treatment. This highly successful program was recognized by the United Nations Development Programme and the Government of Colombia as a best social investment practice.
Fundacion Baylor Colombia operates a CRN, IPS and Alimercambio and facilitates knowledge dialogues between community leaders, health professionals and government.
ARGENTINA
Our program in Argentina, Fundación Baylor-Argentina (Baylor Foundation Argentina) is centered in the province of Neuquén, where we work in partnership with the Provincial Health Ministry and several energy companies to provide high quality pediatric, maternal and community-based care centered in the town of Añelo.
To meet the growing needs of the population of Añelo, which has expanded rapidly over the past 5 years, the program focuses on strengthening access to primary care services for women and children through our key programs:
Pediatric care including well-child visits, anemia detection and a vision screening program;
Women’s health: prenatal care, cervical cancer screening and adolescent pregnancy prevention;
Training and capacity building for local providers;
Rural medicine program for communities in the remote areas of San Roque and Chihuido.
TEAM
Medical Director - Latin America, BIPAI
Medical Director, ECMO Service, Texas Children’s Hospital
Professor of Pediatric Critical Care, Baylor College of Medicine
Chief Medical Officer, BIPAI
Attending Physician, Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital
Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine
PARTNERS
Chevron
YPF
Tecpetrol
ICBF
Exito Foundation
Simon Bolivar
IMC
Chevron, the YPF Foundation, Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatric AIDS Initiative (BIPAI) at Texas Children’s Hospital, and the Health Ministry of Neuquén province are pleased to announce a new program to support maternal-child health care, focusing on the public health center in the town of Añelo.
Neuquén’s public health system is nationally recognized for its high quality and efficiency. The public-private partnership proposed in this program seeks to create mutual collaboration, with the support of various institutions in the Neuquén health system, including Castro Rendón Hospital, Añelo Health Center, Sanitary Zone V, Health Under-Secretariat, Health Ministry and the Municipal Government of Añelo.