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Pindara Private Hospital Magazine - Issue Nine

The other volunteers on our trip were a mix of nurses (local and American), a local ‘obstetrize’ (cross between a midwife and an obstetrician), Spanish speaking non-medical interpreters and all of my husband’s family! The only doctors were my niece, my husband (Ian Dickinson) and myself. Due to the ‘luxury’ of having three doctors along on a trip, we arranged to run a concurrent general medical clinic in each of the five villages we visited. Ian and his trusty interpreter Silvia worked hard in the makeshift ‘clinic’ that was set up in the schoolroom of each village. The population ranged from 70 - 280 in the five villages. Ian managed to see 190 patients during the five days, whilst the local obstetrize and I saw 77. Whilst we had more women who were eligible to be seen, there is still fear and uncertainty among the women and some of them were not ready to undergo an examination. Meanwhile, we had the nurses providing vaccinations (both childhood and adult) to the villagers including HPV vaccinations, which were fortunately provided by the Peruvian government. We also donated school supplies to each of the villages, which were kindly provided by the families of St Hilda’s School. In the middle of the week DBPeru also ran a Health Fair at one of the larger villages and people from many surrounding communities attended. It was a relaxed and fun day where we had different health stations including an eye station where people had their sight (crudely) tested and 450 pairs of donated glasses were distributed. The children were all educated on dental hygiene and given toothbrushes. The women underwent a breast examination and then given one of the 800 donated bras we had with us – which we spent hours sorting into sizes! There was a vaccination station for any adult or child who required immunisation and there was a neonatal resuscitation session, where the local midwives were all updated in their skills. The biggest draw card however was the annual soccer competition to win the coveted DBPeru Cup! The volunteers even have a team and we played one of the women’s teams … no need to inform you who won. One of the most difficult jobs on these outreach trips is looking after the children of the women whilst they are being educated about cervical cancer and then examined. My daughters, aged 10 and 11 at the time, did a marvellous job entertaining up to 30 children with no grasp of the Spanish language at all. Fortunately, the kind donations of toys, stickers, temporary tattoos, drawing implements and Lego from all the volunteers crossed the language barrier and they managed well (with a little help from the adults). Of course, one of the big incentives to go on this trip was the amazing location. To reach the Napo basin requires a one-hour flight from Lima (on a 54 Pindara Magazine 2016


Pindara Private Hospital Magazine - Issue Nine
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