Since Bridges first trip to Haiti in 2010, the need for our healthcare services has been demonstrated again and again.

Our medical team provides basic primary care to neglected areas. Our team is composed of internists, pediatricians, nurses, allied health professionals and educators. Aside from infectious diseases, we provide management for common chronic illnesses such as asthma, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, malnutrition and women’s health issues. In this regard, we have provided medications and resources for thousands of patients.
 

We work closely with the local leadership, government and health care staff to support them to deliver health services to poor and vulnerable segments of society even after we have left. Recent missions have mobilized community resources in innovative ways to improve the health of the poor. These approaches have included training of community health workers through health fairs, the involvement of traditional leaders, and local delivery of services.

As a primary service in the acute phase of disaster relief, we provide emergency dental treatment to address pain and oral infections. We place a strong emphasis on preventative care. We provide dental hygiene instruction, fluoride treatment, and oral hygiene aids. The portability of our equipment allows us to deploy to remote or neglected areas where dental treatment is scarce or non-existent.

Medical Needs Facts

• The health problems that account for much of the global divide in health—including parasitic and infectious diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and childbirth complications—are concentrated among the poorest people within the poorest countries.
• In emerging countries, people suffer from preventable health problems—such as infectious diseases, malnutrition, and complications of childbirth—simply because they are poor.
• Wide gaps in health status between poorer and better-off people are often avoidable and unfair, reflecting different socioeconomic constraints and opportunities rather than different individual choices.
• Epidemics occur as an aftermath of disasters and catastrophes and often emerging countries are unable to control them due to financial and socioeconomic reasons.
• Many initiatives to improve the health of the poorest people have been unsuccessful.
• For more than 1 billion people worldwide living on less than US $1 per day, health services and modern medicines are still out of reach.
• The diseases that affect the poorest people attract relatively little research and development spending worldwide.

Dental Needs Facts

• People in developing countries are burdened by a significant number of oral diseases. The situation is further aggravated by poverty, poor living conditions, lack of dental awareness, and the absence of appropriate policies and funding to provide basic oral health care.
• According to the World Health Organization, oral diseases like dental caries (tooth decay), periodontitis, and oral and pharyngeal cancers are global health problems in both industrialized and developing countries, especially among poorer communities. An estimated 5 billion people worldwide suffer from dental caries.
• The most important challenge is to offer essential oral health care within the context of primary health programs. Community empowerment, harmonization, and organization techniques need to be applied according to the primary healthcare concept.
• Oral health care is virtually nonexistent in rural areas of most developing countries, where more than 80 percent of the population lives. Recently, community-based oral health programs have been initiated in some countries to fill the gap. These programs give more emphasis to oral health promotion and prevention of oral diseases than to treatment of the consequences.

For more information about the medical and dental charity services, please visit the following webpage: Heathcare | Bridges Global Missions.

To apply for a mission trip, please visit the Volunteer Opportunities | Bridges Global Missions webpage.