St. Andrew's Children's Clinic

The mission of St. Andrew's Children's Clinic in Nogales, Arizona is to provide free, specialized medical care to children living in Mexico who cannot get the care or afford the care they need in their home country.

St Andrew's Children's Clinic was founded in 1973 by concerned individuals in Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. Through our relationships and support from US Customs & Border Protection, our mission is to provide free, specialized medical care to children living in Mexico who cannot get the care they need in Mexico. The children suffer from a wide variety of serious medical problems and disabling conditions - spinabifida, cerebral palsy, brittle bones disease, neurological disorders, cleft palate/cleft lip, hearing loss, vision loss, club feet, just to name the more common problems we see.

St. Andrew's Clinic is committed to improving the quality of life of children in need of medical services and has provided children with surgeries and medical procedures which have allowed them to live normal, productive lives like any other children. With early, effective treatment, we can dramatically improve a child's overall health.
Initial treatment and evaluation will occur at our Clinic in Nogales, Arizona, where over 250 children wait in line to eagerly receive medical care, treatment and evaluation from our volunteer medical staff on the first Thursday of every month, except July. The children may see one or more health care professional during one clinic visit, and often leave with orthopedic braces or shoes, wheelchairs, strollers, walkers, hearing aids, eyeglasses, prosthetic limbs or eyes or other needed medical devises. From there, additional surgical treatment is provided by our relationships with local health organizations and Shriner's and CIMA Hospitals where needed testing and surgeries are performed for cleft palate and other specialized orthopedic surgeries. Our annual Cleft Palate Mission held every October has provided over 533 surgeries in the last 13 years to children. This year we are anticipating increasing our children to 65 children. In 2016, we have also increased use of Ipads for speech therapy, dental work prior to cleft palate, increase in orthopedic surgeries, vision programs and looking into expanding into a Dental and Vision Programs. We are also working with a potential donor for a computerized medical records program for our clinic in the future, which will allow us to be more efficient with our medical records and quicker access to doctors on days when they are not at the Clinic. Our goal is for this to occur in 2017.

Simply put, there is nowhere in Mexico these kids can go to receive the surgeries and medical attention they need, and nobody else who will help them. We're their last resort - and their best one, too.

Because of St. Andrew's Children's Clinic's role in the community, most of the children who receive medical assistance at the Clinic go on to live happy and productive lives, and many give back to their communities far more than what they receive from us.

Over the 43 years of operation, the Clinic has continued to provide consistent results and achievements.