TEDxParkCity - TEDxChange - John Hanrahan - People's Health Clinic Hope Alliance
all right I'm just going to dig right in who knows in the list of uh infant mortality rates worldwide who knows which country is ranked 18th think about it how many of you think the United States it's Slovenia Slovenia we're ranked we're ranked 44th okay so I'm just going to go right into uh why this community and how this community is having an impact towards the UN Millennial development goals I'm going to speak to you about the People's Health Clinic uh which is working here locally and then a little bit about the Hope Alliance and some Partnerships working overseas so the People's Health Clinic uh you may know takes care of residents in summon wasach County uh who don't have health insurance we here are very for we live in a an affluent Community we live in a well educated Community yet there are lots and lots of people who live here who do not have access to healthare they are either unemployed or they're seasonal workers or they're struggling working several part-time jobs People's Health clinic this year is going to see more than 6,000 patient visits 6,000 visits of people who otherwise would have access to healthare that number has been growing by probably a third every year one of the critical areas of care that we provide is prenal care goal four of the millennial development goals is to reduce infant mortality goal five is to reduce maternal deaths so I want to just have you imagine a scenario that you sitting here are young married Mexico you work at one of the ski resorts and you're pregnant with your first child but you don't have insurance and you don't have enough money to go to your prenatal visits so your first prenatal visit is at the emergency room when you started bleeding and having and been having contractions you have a condition called placenta Privia that's when the placenta blocks the service the opening to the birth canal so when you have contractions the baby's head just into the the center and starts to you are driven to the emergency room by a friend in a panic you're bleeding you don't have a car you get there and unfortunately tragically it's too late because you've been bleeding for 30 minutes so you and your baby don't survive People's Health Clinic has seen several patients like this over our 10e history and saved those lives because we to identify that rare but existing condition and that's kind of a unique end of the spectrum sort of thing but that's the kind of work that's being done right here in Park City to help save lives we have we have kids here in Park City who go to bed hungry at night we have kids here in Park City who can't read we have kids here in Park City don't have access to healthare so we here can make a difference we can make an impact right here in our community we don't have to go overseas although I'll talk about that a little bit later um Mother Teresa is famous for many reasons I love her for for quotes one of which was if you can't feed 100 people feed just one so that's what I'm here to implore you to do here in our community now the scope here is clearly not near as great as it is overseas so let me tell you about some Partnerships that are occurring right now to do the same thing to reduce maternal deaths and infant mortality overseas in uh one country where the the Hope Alliance is a humanitarian organization that was started here in Park City we go to various countries uh and do various things one of the countries we're in is Guatemala which has one of the highest of the highest infant mortality rates in the Western Hemisphere the isal region in Northeast Guatemala has an even higher rate within the country so the Hope Alliance has been partnering with the Ministry of Health in Guatemala with a local Guatemala nonprofit called R and with various other groups to train midwives and provide supplies to those midwives so that they can take care of prant Ms Right now the two rotary clubs in Park City Park City Sunrise club and Park City lunch Club are partnering with other rotary clubs in Utah uh with the Puerto baros Club in Guatemala to deliver an ambulance to provide training for midwives and to provide the medical supplies and equipment that they need to take care of the mothers and their babies it's not just those rotary groups it's the Guatemalan nonprofits R it's the Guatemala Ministry of Health it's the guala the Berto BOS volunteer fire department it's a consorti ation of groups all working together I can't stress enough the Synergy of Partnerships in international ail International relief we have so many groups in Utah in Park City in Salt Lake working towards these goals from churches to universities to nonprofits my next plea for you is to help me figure out a way to get us all coordinated and working uh towards the same goals on the same page last I'll just is is again to just imagine if your neighbor across the street was going to bed hungry tonight or you knew that they were sick with an easily preventable disease or you knew that they were struggling to read and couldn't read what would you do well I think everyone here would want to help that person and you would you would find a way to help that person what we need to do as a community and globally is shift our thinking and realize that the single mother in Zambia who's struggling to keep her children alive is the same person as the neighbor across the street so that's what I leave you with and let's all make it happen thank you