A few weeks at the Topakal (our medicine clinic)

The last few weeks at the clinic have been full of fun and surprises.

Volunteers:
We've had an art therapy student hanging out twice a week, bringing lots of color and deep insights to patients in the waiting room. Thanks to Celest for pursuing her dreams in collaboration with us. If providers out there haven't had a chance to work with art therapists, seek it out. it totally transforms your waiting room into a therapy room that can buffer patients waiting time befoer their visits and let them debrief afterwards.

Henry also swung by and added his energy to helping get the word out to the Spanish Speaking immigrant community via Churches and local media. He'll hopefully be volunteering with us as he prepares to enter PA school next year.

Ultrasound fudraising:
We had a generous grant from a small family foundation in New Mexico. This combined with many private donations, adds up to $17,000.00 towards the ultrasound machine. Cost is $22,000.0 so we are close. I'm aiming for mid-may to purchase the macine and get that service started. If anyone knows of a bilingual ultrasound tech interested in part time contract work in albuquerque, nm, let me know!

General Finances:
We are seeing about 5 people per day average now which is meeting all the overhead costs and all new debt for supplies purchased each month. Locums has just about paid down all the credit card debt (about $7,000.00) for getting started and buying initials supplies and equipment. i'm still at over a 90% collection rate on date of service and 95% total collection rate. i suspect some people aren't coming because of the charge ($25), it'll take some time to build the trust with folks so that they know they can come in for care and then pay down the road.

Donations:
A local IM doctor closed his practice and donated the contents of his office to us. This was wonderfully helpful in terms of getting a few sets of oto-ophtho scopes, BP cuffs, exam tables, pulseox machines and other odds/ends. He had an EKG machine too, probably one of the first office based machines made. with some hesitancy I left it behind, I love old medical equipment but i'm trying not to feed that fetish too much. :>

aziwa