Marta’s Story

Marta: A success story for community health workers

In the small Mayan community of Rio Pajarito, eleven month old Marta is now a healthy little girl thanks to the skills and swift action of a local community health worker that was trained to diagnose and treat child pneumonia.

At seven months of age, Marta was stricken with serious illness. She suffered from a high fever, exhaustion and rapid breathing. After three days of attempting to cure Marta of her illness using natural home remedies, Marta’s grandfather realized that her condition was deteriorating instead of improving.

At 4am in the morning of the fourth day, Marta’s grandfather rushed Marta to see the local community health worker, Juan Lux. After assessing Marta’s signs and speaking with her grandfather, Juan classified Marta’s illness as “severe pneumonia”, gave her a dose of antibiotic and advised her grandfather to take her directly to the nearest hospital for more aggressive treatment.

Understanding how serious Marta’s condition was, Marta’s grandfather began the hour long walk through the mountains to the next town. From there he had to wait to catch the first bus that would take them the last 30 kilometers to the nearest hospital. In the end, Marta spent four full days in the hospital receiving treatment for her severe pneumonia. She is now completely recovered.