In this blog, missioner Kim Grahl, serving as internist and team chaplain, shares her experiences from the first days of mission. 

It's "back-to-mission" time at Solidarity Bridge. Today, both new and veteran missioners fly to Santa Cruz, Bolivia, for a week of surgeries and training with our partners at San Juan de Dios Hospital.

In the past four months, Puente de Solidaridad organized four laparoscopic surgery campaigns at regional hospitals around the department of Cochabamba. Each five-day effort served an average of 14 patients, many of whom had put off treatment because of their economic situation. 

Because Solidarity Bridge believes that the goods of the Earth (including medical care and equipment) belong to us all, equipping Bolivian hospitals and surgeons with needed instruments and supplies is essential to our mission.

“Helping a Heart to Beat,” a surgical campaign made possible by the coordinated effort of five distinct organizations, took place April 17-19 in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. A true example of solidarity, the campaign served 12 children with congenital heart defects through a high-tech procedure using cardiac catheterization.

Every institution tends to develop its own internal language and Solidarity Bridge is no exception. To keep both new and longtime members of our bridge-building network on the same page, here is a brief glossary.

In this blog, Dr. Moser shares his experience from Geneva, advocating for a global health focus on surgical care.  He represented Solidarity Bridge in the G4 Alliance and attended the opening session of the World Health Assembly. 

Through our work to resource Bolivian surgeons and their affiliate hospitals, we have witnessed the many ways quality surgical care can positively impact the health of patients, and the well-being of their families and entire communities. Yet still, “in low- and middle-income countries, 9 out of 10 people cannot access even the most basic surgical services.”

Summarizing his experiences after more than 20 mission trips, Dr. Richard Moser shares a new development at Solidarity Bridge that connects our on the ground work in Bolivia to a global movement for safer surgery. 

Dr. Barb Lazio, a first-time missioner shares here experience at the halfway point in this mission trip. 

It is hard to believe that five days of Solidarity Bridge’s Neurosurgery Mission to Cochabamba have already spun by.

Mission takes on new dimensions when Solidarity Bridge and our partners in Bolivia undertake the task of planning a three day course.