About Us
Based in Ypsilanti, Michigan, Hope Clinic International is a nonprofit medical mission organization based upon Judeo-Christian principles that is working to build a model of high quality health care for impoverished and ill children in developing countries. Currently our work is focused in Nicaragua.
Our model includes providing essential medical and surgical care, especially by equipping and training local medical providers. We facilitate the creation of professional links between Nicaraguan doctors and surgeons and specialists in the US for ongoing mentoring. We take medical mission trips to supplement the care provided by clinics and doctors in Nicaragua.
We rely on the volunteer efforts of medical professionals, Spanish interpreters, and others willing to participate in and fund our medical mission trips to Nicaragua.
Our History
Dr. Daniel Heffernan from Ann Arbor, Michigan, founded Hope Clinic International in 1997 after personally observing the poverty, lack of medical resources, and overwhelming need in the Central American nation of Nicaragua.
In 2001 we began by partnering with individuals of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in several Nicaraguan cities, providing short-term relief medical missions twice a year, and in 2005 we opened Tim’s Clinic in Estelí, Nicaragua, in honor of Tim Anderberg. Tim, the son of one of our most dedicated volunteers, Roger Anderberg, MD, died tragically from injuries received in a pedestrian accident.
Since 2008 Dr. Joseph Lelli (an HCI pediatric general surgeon volunteer) began a partnership with Dr. Alfredo Valle, a Nicaraguan pediatric surgeon at that nation’s primary children’s hospital, La Mascota. The partnership between HCI and Dr. Valle has contributed to a pediatric surgery program utilizing state-of-the-art laparoscopic surgical techniques to repair complex congenital gastrointestinal conditions. Currently HCI coordinates with pediatricians and surgeons from the US to provide thousands of volunteer hours during semi-annual visits to supplement our Nicaraguan staff’s year-round efforts at Tim’s Clinic.
In 2014 we opened a clinical laboratory to provide more accurate and timely diagnoses for our patient population.
