A late week 3 in DR

This week we did sexually transmitted infection “charlas” (talks) at the surrounding schools within a 30 minute radius of Restauracion. Rick and I helped edit the Powerpoint presentation, so it was nice to see them being presented. The first charla was at Carrizal, a town about 30 minutes away. This was a pretty small town and the school had under 50 students. One of the residents there told us that they haven't had running water there for two months. The second charla happened Mariano Sostero, a slightly larger neighboring town 20 minutes away.

STI charla in Carrizal

Dr. Ricardo gave the presentations in Spanish. He did a great job at getting the kids involved with the presentation and used terms that the kids would use. Of course, some of the kids found it difficult to get through the class without giggling.

Dr. Ricardo giving the STI charla at Mariano Sostero

The second half of the week we worked with the adults who have diabetes and hypertension. FIMRC works with a chronic disease doctor from Santiago who drives over to Restauracion once a month to check on and counsel the locals in and around here. FIMRC encourages the local to come get weekly blood pressure and glucose checks and provides them with medication refills. At the end of the month Dr. Lesly reviews their charts and counsels them in case they need to change their treatment. The locals get really excited when he visit, so we had great turnouts.

BP and glucose checks at a local community.

Dr. Lesly with us before he headed back to Santiago.