DB Perú Report

Mid-year 2010

We have had two very busy jungle trips – one in April and the other in July.  Our later start with our jungle work this year was due to my going to assist with the earthquake disaster relief for Haiti in February.  

April

This 10-day trip included 3 volunteers, Dr.Vera Martin (USA), Richard O´Leary (New Zealand), who was with us last year, and Rick MaCrae (USA).  Although there were only 6 of us with Renzo, Circo, our boat driver and myself, we had a highly productive trip.

Dr. Martin held medical clinics in the school houses in 4 villages, one per day, with nearby villages invited.  With the help of Richard, Rick and Renzo, she saw and treated over 200 patients in those 4 days.   Renzo organized and registered the patients, and Richard manned the medicines and filled prescriptions with Vera’s guidance.   Medicines were purchased by DB Peru from the Minister of Health in Peru as well as Dr. Martin donating medicines and supplies of her own.  The Cathedral Church of the Good Shepherd in Lima also donated dental and medical supplies used on this trip, as well as medicines and crèmes donated by Dr. Luigi and Tricia Ghiglino.

Although most of the cases can be treated fairly simply, some patients present with symptoms that are more complicated to diagnose without testing.  Some we refer to the clinics and transport if necessary, and for others, we keep records on those that need follow-up.  Then on subsequent visits, we locate those patients to assure that they have either gotten better or need to be assessed further.

Problems ran the gamut of symptoms, such as fevers, skin rashes and infections, colds and cough, stomach pain, back pain, headache, with some troublesome histories of possibly indicating tuberculosis and malaria.  She removed a spine a couple inches long from a foot of a very stoic man and stitched up a rather ugly looking injury on the hand of a very brave little 10 year old girl.

Sadly on our last clinic day, the parents brought in their toddler boy, approx 2 years old, panting for breath with advanced pneumonia.  The child looked gravely ill, but was taking fluids well, so we transported him and his family in our boat to the clinic in Orellana, where there is a doctor and staff.  However that was all there was – they started an IV, but there was no medicine to treat the child, no oxygen, no suction.  I ran back to our boat for whatever IV injectables I could find that might help.   Dr. Vera and I tried CPR, but the child was too tired to breathe more and died in our arms 30 minutes after arrival.  Infections advance rapidly in the jungle heat and humidity, and the child was overcome with congestion in his lungs.   

Due to the seasonal high waters in the rivers in April, Circo and I were able to maneuver our boat into back waters in order to visit 24 villages, about 5 per day.  We delivered a bag of medicine to 19 villages, including one dose of worm medicine for all 3500 people.   I took this opportunity to update inventories of health supplies and information about each community. 

For our scholarship program, we interviewed several students for the semester starting in August.

All radios and solar panels were checked and one battery was taken for repair to Iquitos.  We continue to buy medicine for Antonio Perez with Parkinson’s disease in San Pedro, and also checked on Don Victor Cevillano in San Juan de Floresta, also with Parkinson’s.   He oversaw the building of the canopy walkway at the ExplorNapo Lodge with its 13 swinging bridges into the canopy of the rainforest.  We stopped by Dr. Linnea Smith’s clinic on the Amazon River to deliver a dental machine and supplies.

We had a very exciting surprise waiting for us in Orellana, where we were delivering several huge bags of fabric to the sewing classes that we help sponsor.  The municipality had built a beautiful building to house the 20 sewing machines that we bought several years ago.  The Singer machines were looking good and classes were starting the following week.  The teachers showed us around the building, which now is also housing other trades, like woodworking, beauty classes and native artisan crafts.

Our stop at San Juan de Floresta yielded a wonderful file full of thank you notes written by the students, who were the recipients of vitamins, shoes, school supplies and toys from a school in New Hampshire.  Last year the Fifth Grade Class of Michelle Carlson of Plainfield Elementary designated this village as their Kindness Mission Penny War effort.  In addition they had made 12 necklaces made of native jungle seeds, which is a craft from the native tribe of the Yaguas.  These were mailed back to the New Hampshire school in May.

July

This 10-day jungle trip was focused around the Second Annual Health Fair and Soccer Tournament and the Health Promotor Training Class.

Six medical students and one pharmacy student from the University of Colorado taught the class especially for lay health workers to improve community health.  We met with Dr. Davila in Lima, the author of the program developed for the Minister of Health.  He guided us as to the intent of the program and methods to teach.  The class was held in the village of Mangua for one day, with local women cooking all three meals for the attendees. 

With the leadership of Todd Carlson and Annie Slaughter, returning 4th year medical students, 20 promotores and 7 midwives received education about to conduct home visits in their own communities to teach and to model safe methods for sanitation, food handling, water treatment, disposal of waste, smoke from cooking fires, keeping animals in pens, etc. They also instructed and demonstrated how to properly take pulse, temperature and respiration and what criteria would be a warning for a medical problem.  Certificates were given out at the end of day with class photos. 

Other students were:

Chris Warner, returning 4th year medical student

Rick Actis, Mark Plate and Brandon Konkel, all first year medical students

Shelby Kemper, first year pharmacy student.

After the classes the students returned to the villages to work one-on-one with the promotores for follow-up and observing the home visits.  This will be an annual continuing program for the university with Diana acting as their in-country advisor.

The Second Annual Health Fair and Soccer Tournament was again a success this year.  Held on July 24 in the village of Mangua, 18 villages participated in the health care activities, demonstrations and educational sessions.  Seventeen volunteers participated to make this a wonderful, fun and informative day.  This event is our way of sharing in the communities’ culture and dispersing health care information to many people at the same time.

The presentations included:

Forum for health promotores

Forum for midwives

Reading glasses fitted and distributed for men and women

Dental classes for children with new toothbrushes

Flu vaccine injections, donated by Dr. Linnea Smith – these were given by Juvencio Nuñez and Carmen, another técnica from Dr. Smith’s clinic, as well as our own 2 students from our scholarship program, Liz and Madila

CONAPAC (NGO) presentation of clean water project with demonstration and clowns – 5 volunteers

Traditional healing with native plants, barks and herbs presented by shaman, Guillermo

Care and cleaning of nails with new nail clippers for attendees (this helps the children to not scratch dirt into their bug bites on arms and legs)

The soccer tournament was played by all 18 teams in time-modified play-off.  Renzo oversaw the games along with the help of Todd and Juvencio’s son.  Canadá was our winner, receiving the first place trophy and new crème and red jerseys for each player and a prize.  San Alejandro came in second for their trophy and game ball.

The day overall was bright and sunny and hot.  Women set up blankets around the field and sold drinks and food, as well as other everyday items.  Children were running and playing on the periphery, with new balloons for all.    

Other activities for this trip were buying and delivering Parkinson medicine for Antonio Perez, and buying and delivering a new battery to San Juan de Floresta for their radio and solar panel.  We met with all 6 current scholarship students and the two new young men to start in the laboratory program in September.  New uniform items were purchased, as well as replacement items for the apartment.  A separate report was written for the Scholarship Program and posted on website.

Website

The website has been updated with new information, photos and pages.  www.dbperuong.com.

In addition, there is a new Facebook page – DB Peru.

Special Donation

DB Peru was chosen as the charity of choice from a woman who is dying of cancer.  A large donation of jewelry was given to by Barbara Voorhees, who assisted in selling the pieces for cash.  So far she has raised approx $150 from the sell of the jewelry.  We would like to give special thanks to this woman for her touching, generous gesture.

Diana Bowie

President DB Peru