Health clinics and training, from Boston
to Boston
In the G section of today's Globe, Bella English writes about Elizabeth Sheehan, and her imaginative effort to transform old cargo containers into clinics for poor Third World countries.
A former physician's assistant who has lived and worked in many developing countries, Sheehan created Containers2Clinics, a non-profit, to turn the idea into reality. The first clinic will be delivered to Bani in the Dominican Republic in January. Sheehan, who grew up in Plymouth and lives in Dover, hopes that will be the first of 50 such clinics in five years.
The Dominican clinic will be run by Waltham-based Infante Sano, (Spanish for "Healthy Infant"), another impressive non-profit in the Boston area. Infante Sano was founded by Bill Haney, a filmmaker and biotech entrepreneur, and since 2006 has set up training programs in three Dominican communities to improve the skills and resources available to doctors and nurses to treat mothers and infants. Infante Sano works with Children's Hospital and other partners.
Haney describes the work done so far on the Infante Sano website: "In Bani, San Cristobal and La Romana we've now trained hundreds of doctors and nurses in neonatal resuscitation, emergency obstetric care, and care for newborn babies - reaching over 35,000 mothers and infants. We've remodeled and re-equipped three hospitals' infant and maternal care facilities, shipping almost $2 million dollars of supplies and equipment for a mere investment of $50k. We've opened two clinics for impoverished mothers and children and had more than 5,500 visits annual from them. Our local staff numbers 14 and we've built critical partnerships with the Dominican Ministry of Health and clinical partners across the country. We are confident that our programs are improving the health and wellbeing of women and children and we are poised to spread our model across the DR and build partnerships to implement in other countries."
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About this blog
About James F. Smith
Jim Smith came home to his native Boston in 2002 to become the Boston Globe's foreign editor after spending 22 years abroad. He was previously based in Buenos Aires and Mexico City for the LA Times, and in Johannesburg, Tokyo and The Hague for the AP. In 2007 he became the Globe's national political editor, coordinating presidential campaign coverage. He is a Yale graduate, and has an MBA. He is married to Maxine Hart and has two sons, Matthew and Daniel.
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