Jungle Hospital – Dyer Rural Hospital

Jungle Hospital - Dyer Rural Hospital – Rio Viejo, Atlantida, Honduras Mission: Healing Hands Global, Inc. is located in Baton Rouge, LA. The ministry is Jungle Hospital in Rio Viejo, Honduras. Vision: The vision of HHG is to bring health, hope, and healing to the people of the third world, by developing a comprehensive model for healthcare in rural areas. Specialty Needs: DDS, EM, FM, PEDS, RN Requirements: Intermediate to fluent Spanish preferred – 2 weeks minimum service. Will accept residents in last year and medical students – 1 month minimum service and fluent Spanish preferred. Currently unable to accommodate volunteers bringing larger families; only parents with one or two children at this time. Expansions are in the planning phase. Profile: The Williams family has been serving in Honduras since 1994. Their formative years in ministry were under the mentorship of Jack and Shirley Dyer near the northern coastal city of La Ceiba. During the first four years, they assisted the Dyers in operating their dairy farm, which served as a means of training and discipling the local people, as well as providing a source of income and nourishment. They hosted short-term missions groups – building churches, parsonages, and educational buildings in the surrounding villages – and used their experience in children’s ministry to train puppet teams, beginning children’s ministries in the local churches. It was during those years that they familiarized themselves with the culture and people of Northern Honduras, realizing their needs and the vision that God had given the Dyers decades before: to build a hospital and serve the nearly 20,000 people in the mountains surrounding Rio Viejo. In 1999, the Williams family moved to the capital city of Tegucigalpa for Martin to attend medical school. He received his degree in medicine after 5 years of study in 2005, and the family returned to La Ceiba, where Dr. Martin served his year of internship in the government-operated Hospital Atlantida. In 2006, Wendy Williams finished a six-year teaching tenure in various bilingual schools. Thus she and the children finally moved to Rio Viejo to establish themselves in the clinic and set up a home base, while Dr. Martin attended his year of social commitment in the distant village of Las Minas. After completing his service later that November, they set out to fulfill the requirements for the hospital. In November 2007, Dyer Rural Hospital of Rio Viejo (Jungle Hospital) was officially inaugurated. In 2015, the hospital became certified as a Level II hospital. In February 2016, they dedicated the Labor and Delivery Ward, as well as the Surgical and Recovery Wards. They have served over 35,000 patient consults at the hospital and the surrounding community. Time Difference: 2 Hours Daylight Savings Time (EST), U.S.A., -1 Hour Eastern Standard Time. We are in the Central Time Zone, but do not practice daylight savings time. Location: Dyer Rural Hospital (Jungle Hospital) is located in Rio Viejo, Honduras, approximately 20 km (12 miles) from the coastal city of La Ceiba. The drive is approximately 1 hour along a rural dirt road. Language: Although 95% of the population is considered Roman Catholic, it is extremely unlikely that most of these will have read or heard even the most basic precepts of the faith. Culture: Heavy tattoos and/or piercings are not acceptable in the local culture. Volunteers with tattoos must be able to cover them completely and all piercings (outside of earrings on women) should be removed during service time. Climate: Honduras is very hot and humid. A light jacket should be taken for evenings and in the higher elevations. Housing: Volunteers are lodged in G-Flat Volunteer Housing. G-Flats contain four apartments that are located behind the hospital, within the same gated perimeter. Each apartment has its own bathroom, kitchen, and small living area. Outside the building is a laundry facility with two washing machines and two dryers. These are shared by the volunteers who are staying in the four apartments. Volunteers are responsible to take care of their own laundry. Teams serving for one week at Jungle Hospital are lodged in a dormitory on campus. The first floor of the dorm has two bunk rooms; one for the ladies and the other for the men. There is also a dining room and a kitchen that is accessible to anyone staying in the dorm. There are three guest rooms located on the second floor of the dorm, along with a large enclosed porch area and a laundry facility. This laundry facility is only available to the second-floor guests, and not for the first-floor team members. Currently, the only areas of the campus that have AC are the Pharmacy and the medical storage facility. Each of the housing areas has ceiling fans, a small floor fan, and lower bunk bed fans. Linens are provided for all the housing areas. Food: For volunteers serving up to one month, meals are included in pricing for room and board. For volunteers serving for longer than one month, meals are not provided. Volunteers will purchase groceries and prepare their own meals. The cost of groceries is estimated at approximately $50 per adult per week.