Hillside Health Care International was founded to serve the unmet medical needs of the Toledo District. The clinic first opened its doors in 2000 under the name of “Jericho Road Clinic." The name changed to Hillside Health Care International in July 2005. Volunteer doctors and nurses and a few medical students saw patients in the clinic on Mondays and Wednesdays and then took a mobile clinic to one of the remote villages on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

In October 2005, Abigail Drake Brinkman, a fourth-year medical student from Indiana University School of Medicine, died in a tragic diving accident on a weekend excursion while doing a tropical medicine rotation at the Hillside Clinic. Because of the Brinkman family’s fantastic efforts, the Rotary Club of Columbus, IN, and many other people, Abby’s House was built in 2008.

Abby’s House provides housing for additional students and allowed the expansion of medical teams. In addition, Hillside increased its clinical services in 2010 to daily clinics in Eldridgeville and daily mobile clinics in a remote village.

Hillside continues to work within the Belize Ministry of Health framework in collaboration with the San Antonio and Punta Gorda Polyclinics and strives to be responsive to the unmet medical needs of the Toledo District.