Hearing for the first time
At 8 a.m. on a Friday morning, Heidy Valeska Mazariegos, in the company of her mother, Florencia Mazariegos Macario, comes for her monthly check-up at the clinic for renal care, located in the city of Quetzaltenango. Heidy and doña Florencia are from the municipality of Olintepeque, located 7 km from the departmental capital of Quetzaltenango, the second largest city in Guatemala, about 210 km from the country's capital city. Heidy is a single daughter, she married when she was 19, and soon became pregnant, but her pregnancy had severe complications and she suffered from pre-eclampsia on her sixth month of pregnancy.
“On previous occasions, the Social Security tried to call for tender for implants, but it was very difficult, and was not successful. Previously, we had identified 83 children as eligible candidates. However, due to the long process, many of the parents withdrew and others gave up because of economic issues, as one part of the cost is paid by IGSS and the other part of the cost must be paid by the beneficiaries. The families do not pay for the implant, but they pay the cost of transportation for therapies or calibrations”
“Sometimes we had limitations because of transportation. But this has not been an inconvenient as we come to the therapies at the Clinic twice a week. My baby girl is happy because now she can hear, thanks to the implant. Before, she only made "temper tantrums" and now she understands, she says more words, the vowels. Now, when a dog barks, she says woof woof, and starts looking around for the dog, we are very happy!”
The requirements of the children selected by the IGSS for the implant program, as the case of Keily, correspond to patients with profound bilateral hearing loss who do not benefit from hearing aids, with an adequate anatomy that allows implantation and that they have a cochlear nerve. “To date, all implanted children are already listening to sounds. But language takes longer, and it is slower. For us, as IGSS physicians, it is very emotional to be part of this process, since for many years we have struggled to get this going forward and we had not had the opportunity to provide this service. Now, when I tell the parents that the child is deaf, we can offer them an alternative,” Dr. Carlos Figueroa, an otologist at the IGSS General Hospital for Diseases, Guatemala, declares.
Through these actions, the United Nations system in Guatemala has generated impacts on the savings of public resources and on the quality of public procurements, enabling citizens to have better access to adequate healthcare services, benefiting 3.2 million social security users in Guatemala.
So far, and with the support of this program, we have carried out:
Surgeries
Therapies
Calibrations
Since 2016, the Guatemalan Social Security Institute (IGSS) through UNOPS has achieved:
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Savings of 58% corresponding to 2 billion quetzals
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Distributing 450 million items (units and doses) of medicines improving stock levels by up to 90%
Through these actions, the United Nations system in Guatemala has generated impacts on the savings of public resources and on the quality of public procurements, enabling citizens to have better access to adequate healthcare services, benefiting 3.2 million social security users in Guatemala.