Why Another Mission Hospital?
Watch the video below and catch the vision for Hospital Yojoa!
Healthcare in Honduras
One of the key indicators used to determine the vitality of a country’s healthcare system is the number of hospital beds per 1,000 people. According to World Bank data, In Honduras, that number is just one fifth that of the United States.
With insufficient hospital beds, wait times for care are longer and ultimately, health outcomes suffer.
We can change the story.
Why the Yojoa region?
We believe the Yojoa region is strategically located to serve as a hospital site to help alleviate the overwhelming patient flow into the public healthcare system. It will also serving as a good location for teaching and training Honduran and expatriate medical providers, which will increase long-term capacity of the healthcare system.
Here are just a few of the factors considered:
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The site of the hospital is located near a major highway that connects the two largest cities in Honduras, San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa.
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In order to be a site for comprehensive teaching, the hospital needs to be located in a region where sufficient patient volume exists to function in teaching medicine. Our proximity to urban areas will make this possible.
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We will be located 90 minutes from an international airport by private car, and 2.5 hours from the major port city of Puerto Cortes where containers of donated supplies can be imported.
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Local nonprofits who have had a presence in the area for decades are eager to work cooperatively with us in the goal to start a hospital. Our team has been able to form many long term connections to key players within the community.
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Quality biotech mechanics and repairmen are hard to find and pivotal to maintaining the medical equipment in a hospital. Placing our hospital in a central location enables us to more easily hire the national talent to assist with equipment maintenance.
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Recruiting professional Honduran support staff like nurses is essential to maintaining a sustainable hospital. It can be difficult to recruit and maintain nationals to work in a rural location after they have received higher education in urban areas. We anticipate that a more centrally located hospital with available public transport to the larger cities will improve our staff retention.
The Larger Vision, the Western Hemisphere
Another primary reason our team feels the Yojoa region is a strategic location for a Christian mission hospital is that we know many US medical professionals have a desire to volunteer but don’t because of the lack of opportunity in the Western hemisphere. While the opportunities to serve in clinics within the western hemisphere are numerous, there are limited opportunities to serve in mission hospitals, especially for specialists. The trend towards specialization and hi-tech procedures within the US healthcare system has limited many US healthcare workers from being able to contribute to the needs of the developing world in a clinic setting. We see this as a lost opportunity.
There are many large mission hospitals in the eastern hemisphere where US specialists could potentially volunteer, but travel time, jet lag, and high costs often make short-term trips impractical and unfeasible. Many specialists have very limited time off from work, and they therefore can’t make a trip halfway across the world.
Many long-term missionaries discover their passion for serving by first going on a short term trip. We therefore feel that an accessible mission hospital in the Western hemisphere will likely help to inspire more medical professionals to consider long term mission work, both within Honduras and beyond. In this way, we hope that Hospital Yojoa will have a profound impact on the healthcare of Honduras and the western hemisphere.
