2021 Project
Ngäbe Community Support - Panama
Health Goes Global supports the sustainable health care brought to vulnerable, remote Ngäbe communities in the archipelagos of Bocas del Torro, Panama. These mobile clinics are carried out by Floating Doctors, our longest standing partner, since 2017. Ongoing primary care, emergency care, dental care, education, advocacy, training, and community development is brought to almost 200 patients on clinic days. An emphasis on preventative care and sustainability is achieved by revisiting these remote villages every 3 months to manage their chronic health issues.
In the wake of COVID19 priorities have shifted and within these remote villages, elders and infants are suffering from malnutrition and discontinuation of life-saving medications. We will help ensure providers are able to care for these individuals by providing PPE (gloves, face shields, and masks), soap, and chronic patient medications to the Floating Doctors.
Additional preventive health missions we will focus on in 2021 are distributing soap, period packs, contraceptives, and education for the women in these communities. HGG is pleased to continue support to Floating Doctors because they embody our mission of sustainable preventative health care, but they also celebrate, respect, and help preserve the Ngäbe cultural way of living.
For some Ngäbe people, they would have to travel 6 hours by boat to the nearest hospital to seek medical care. Fortunately, Floating Doctors has special permission from the Panamanian government to travel with extreme precaution to these vulnerable communities in 2021, many of which are only accessible via boat.
Pictured above is Hannah Akre, Gloves Go Global Executive Director and Co-Founder, working the intake station volunteering with Floating Doctors in 2017 in the community Norteño .
Providing:
PPE including gloves, face shields, and masks
Soap
Period packs, menstrual health education
contraceptives and family planning education
Chronic disease medications
Food and chronic disease medications safely being delivered to Ngäbe communities amidst the COVID pandemic.
Ethan Klausmeyer, Health Goes Global Board of Directors and Ben LaBrot, Floating Doctors Founder pictured at the Floating Doctors base in Bocas Del Torro.
“By continuing our sustainable partnership with Floating Doctors, we will work towards our collective mission of global disease prevention and elevating the quality of life for the underserved through preventive health care.”
-Hannah Akre, Health Goes Global Executive Director
Content contribution by volunteer Jeremy Garneau.