Florencio Corea

End Date: Jan 1, 2015 12:00 AM

In August, Texas A&M had a Medical Brigade in the community of Chirina where they met 4-year old Florencio, an incredibly sweet and shy boy. This shyness can largely be attested to the disease he was born with: Congenital Bilateral Cortipathy. In other words, Florencio was born nearly deaf. Right now, he can still hear, but it is very foggy sounding and without help from a device, he will lose his hearing altogether. Additionally, as a result of his disease, Florencio is severely behind with language development since the inner ear malformation has not allowed him to properly learn how to speak like other children his age.

Florencio’s family desperately wants to get him the help he needs but unfortunately Chirina does not have a health center and the closest one is about an hour and a half walking distance away. Furthermore, Florencio requires care that goes beyond the abilities of a rural health center. With Florencio’s father working in the fields to provide for the family and his pregnant mother taking care of him and his 9-year old sister, the family is at an extreme financial and logistical disadvantage.

That is, until Texas A&M students met Florencio and were inspired to continue their passion for helping Honduras even after returning to the States. Soon after their Brigade, Texas A&M contacted the Patient Referral team to get an update on Florencio. This resulted in visiting Florencio and officially opening a case. Florencio needs surgery that will place tubes in his ears to drastically improve his hearing, as well as speech therapy to get him speaking like a healthy 4-year old. We cannot offer a projection of the total cost of bringing Florencio’s hearing to what it should be until we are able to bring him to a specialist. The cost for this initial visit is broken down below:

Doctor\\\'s appointment: $50
Truck to/from Florencio\\\'s house and to/from doctor: $50
Driver\\\'s salary: $25
Lunch for Florencio and family member: about $10
= total $135 (USD)

We hope with your generous contributions, we will be able to get Florencio to this appointment in the very near future and be one step closer to helping him become a healthy 4-year old boy.

For any questions or to find out how to get more involved, contact Patient Referral developer, Courtney Ferreira at courtney@globalbrigades.org.