Name: Monsignor Eduardo Alas Medical Specialty Clinic

Founded: 2007

Bishop Eduardo Alas and Padre Fuentes saw a great need for specialized medical care in the province of Chalatenango. They began to bring a small group of doctors from the capital city, San Salvador, to serve this need. The group would visit different villages in Chalatenango once a month. Finally, after functioning like this for over a year, the diocese allowed Padre Fuentes to repair an old, ruined home, investing over $30,000. Today, the clinic is still operating out of this repaired structure.

The mission of the clinic is to bring specialized medical care to those most in need in Chalatenango.

Bishop Alas and Padre Fuentes continued to support the clinic, welcoming recently graduated doctors from Cuba and also from El Salvador. The clinic has provided specialized care in areas including: gynecology, pediatrics, cardiology, internal medicine, radiology, orthodontics, ophthalmology and psychology, as well as lab services.

Our faith calls us to go out and help those who have fallen on the journey, like the Good Samaritan did. This is what drives us to serve our people.

Since starting the clinic, over 7,000 people have been seen.

Our pilot plan is to make medicine accessible to the poor population of El Salvador (roughly 90% of the population). In the past 500 years, they have been denied access to specialized medical care, but now, thanks to God, we are able to bring specialized medicine to the most under-served people.

Each Sunday, a specialist comes to the small village of La Reina to provide medical care in his or her area. The cost of a visit is only $10, while it might cost $30 to see the same doctor in San Salvador. Many of these doctors have come to the understanding that they entered medicine to serve others, not to become rich. Hallelujah! Each month, a dermatologist, a pediatrician, a psychologist, and a cardiologist take a week, and we will soon be adding a gastroenterologist.

We have a passion for serving the poor, because they have been neglected for more than 500 years. Furthermore, immediately following the Second Vatican Council, as a Church, the bishops of Latin America gathered together in 1969, in Medellín, Colombia, and introduced the PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE POOR, recognizing that for many years, the Catholic Church catered to the dominant classes of society.

The clinic is the first of its kind in the Province of Chalatenango (population 250,000). As little as four years ago, not even the government was able to provide these services. We hope to be able to expand our clinic to o ther towns in the future.

If you want to help to support the clinic please donate here: