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Home \ Initiatives \ Providing Medical Support |
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RMF Clinic – Peru The Policlínico Peruano Americano
We opened the doors to the Policlínico Peruano Americano in its permanent location on December 10, 2008. We had an inauguration that was attended by the residents from San Clemente, government officials, all of our friends who have helped us out along the way, hospitals administrators from hospitals in Lima, and a national news team that provided coverage of the story. The permanent location is an earthquake safe house with several rooms for exams, a large waiting area, a kitchen area which will eventually be used for a lab. The whole house had been renovated and converted into a clinic just before the inauguration. An addition to the clinic is also being constructed where we will have two additional exam rooms, a larger open-air waiting room, and a garage to house an ambulance. The long line of patients starts to form 2 hours before the clinic opens in the morning. Since December, the clinic has average 31 patients per day. Some days, the number of patients exceeds 70. It is now the middle of the winter and people are more reluctant to leave their homes and travel to the clinic despite their ailments. The patient flow will pick back up as the weather improves. To date, 4750 patients have received medical attention at the clinic.
Cases Seen at Clinic
School Nurse Program
Campaigns In the following months, the clinic team traveled to three very impoverished communities on the outskirts of San Clemente without access to healthcare. During these campaigns, the clinic team was able to attend to over 1200 patients in total.
Educational Presentations
Nutrition Program Psychology Program Direct Relief International
Other news at the clinic:
Informe sobre el progreso del Policlínico de Perú, Febrero 2008 (.6 MB doc) Febrero 2008 Photos (2.5 MB pdf) Informe sobre el progreso del Policlínico de Perú, Enero 2008 1.4 MB pdf) Peru Clinic Progress Report December 2007 (.6 MB pdf) Informe sobre el progreso del Policlínico de Perú, Diciembre 2007 (.5 MB pdf) Diciembre 2007 Photos (2 MB pdf) Local press coverage of our Clinic in Peru - 12/17/07 Peru Clinic Progress Report (.doc 1 Mb.) Progress Report
The RMF Clinic in Peru officially opened for business on November 12, just one month since our small team arrived in Peru. The clinic is currently operating in a temporary capacity in the parish hall at the Catholic Church in San Clemente. While health services are being administered from the Church, we are busily searching the area for a permanent edifice to house the clinic. There are a few locations in the pipeline that have potential to serve as the permanent clinic. We are currently employing four people at the RMF clinic: physician, nurse, pharmacist, and night guard. The temporary clinic consists of a triage, examining room, and pharmacy. The clinic hours are from 8am-3pm, Monday – Friday. In the first week (ending on Nov 16), 168 patients of all ages were treated by Dr David Torrealva. The most numerable cases treated include respiratory related infections (57 cases), urinary tract infections (35), aches/pains (24), skin allergies/infections (11), and intestinal infections (8). There has been an influx of respiratory ailments and skin disorders throughout Pisco following the earthquake, which can be attributed to the large amounts of newly created dust in the air from several thousand collapsed buildings.
To accompany the opening of the clinic, we have taken the initiative to announce our presence in the community by sponsoring various events. On Saturday, November 17, we sponsored two workshops in the community, administered by RMF Advisory Board Member, Dr Dotun Ogunyemi (OB/GYN Residency Director – Cedars Sinai Hospital, OB/GYN Associate Professor – UCLA). Dr Ogunyemi presented to a group of 16 local Peruvian physicians on such topics as Hypertension in Pregnancy, Post Partum Hemorrhaging, and especially HIV Transmission in Pregnancy, an important topic few physicians are familiar with in the area. This event helped identify the RMF Clinic as a leader in the medical community.
The second workshop, also administered by Dr Ogunyemi, targeted pregnant women in the community. Dr Ogunyemi discussed many facets of normal pregnancy, complications in pregnancy, STDs, and cancer prevention. 13 women attended the workshop and it was very interactive and well-received. We marketed the opening of the RMF clinic and the Community Pregnancy workshop by A) visiting 20 communal kitchens which directly feed the entire community of San Clemente and B) by introducing the RMF clinic on a local Television talk show for 15 minutes.
In addition, the RMF clinic team participated in a medical campaign on Monday, Nov 19, at the local school in San Clemente (3600 students). Services were offered out of a classroom and approximately 45 children were seen and treated. The school cannot afford a school nurse and we are currently making preliminary plans to staff the school with a nurse.
Peru - Random Thoughts
Dust - Everything in Pisco is covered in dust. So much dust has been generated in Pisco due to the many collapsed buildings. Sometimes when walking around, you find yourself in a haze of dust where your entire surroundings appear cloudy. It’s also not very comforting to know that you are breathing the dust. Many people wear a mask over their mouths to filter the dust. We have been told that many people are suffering from respiratory ailments brought on from the dust and I expect that many cases at our clinic will involve respiratory sicknesses.
Jitters - It is no surprise that the people in Pisco are on edge following such a catastrophe. On a few separate occasions, large trucks have rumbled by and the people’s hearts skip a beat as they think another earthquake is upon them. One teenager named Pedro was listening to Rene’s ipod and a truck drove by. Before I even noticed the truck, Pedro had already stripped the ipod from his ears and he was half way to the door, full of fear. These people have seen carnage which I hope they never have to experience again. I imagine they will live in fear for the next few years. School - Even though Pisco looks like a WWII war zone, everyone has done their best to resume to normalcy. The kids have all returned to school. Classrooms were some of the first structures to be rebuilt. They are merely cabins made out of plywood, but they serve their purpose. All of the school children wear very clean uniforms and it is amusing when school is let out and the children flood the streets.
Peru - San Clemente We met with an engineer with ACER who showed us some potential lots in the town of San Clemente which we could use for our clinic. It’s looking more likely that we will be setting up shop in San Clemente. This town is about 6 km from Pisco along the major coastal road. They were very affected by the earthquake and it is actually a more impoverished area than Pisco. 25,000 people reside in San Clemente and the area is growing rapidly. They are very much in need of healthcare. San Clemente can be easily accessed by residents from Pisco who are looking to receive our free services. In addition, San Clemente is gateway into Huancavelica. Huancavelica is a mountain state and they currently do not have any healthcare at all. People are trying to make the journey down to San Clemente by foot to see a doctor and they are dying along the road. Normally, the trip is 3 hours by car from San Clemente. We told ACER that we could set up an outreach program to train local people from different communities in Huancavelica to administer first aid...and to also identify those cases that need advanced treatment. We will then pay to have people transported down (or pick them up in our ambulance) to our clinic in San Clemente where they can receive further treatment. Our location and partnership will most likely be finalized next week, but this situation seems ideal.
We are also looking forward to collaboration with PAMS (Peruvian American Medical Society). PAMS is an American NGO working in Peru doing very similar work to RMF but on a much larger scale. They are planning to build a medical complex, probably in Pisco, with Peruvian and American specialists such as OB/GYN, Radiologists, etc. Our clinic will be affiliated with the PAMS clinic and it will serve as a place we can refer our patients for x-rays or advanced procedures that we are not equipped to handle. It will also expand the reach of PAMS/RMF services as the 2 clinics will be in different locations near Pisco and will be able to service a larger population of people. Peru - Distribution Yesterday morning, we participated in a distribution. Tzu Chi had plans to distribute a 110 lb sack of rice, mattress, bag of beans, blanket, and cooking oil to each of the 2000 families that live in the San Andreas district of Pisco. It is more manageable to help everyone in a single designated area versus helping a few people all over town (and riots can be avoided). We left at 6am on the bus with 40 uniformed Tzu Chi volunteers from Taiwan, US, Peru, Paraguay, and Argentina. The distribution took place at a fish factory in San Andreas. When we arrived, many residents were already there to welcome us. After a 45 minute ceremony, the distribution began. They would allow about 60 people into the building at a time...they would be given their goods...then we would help them out with their rice as they exited the back door of the warehouse. Most of these people don’t have cars so eventually taxis started to arrive and they were charging a premium to cart everyone’s goods to their house. People were sharing taxis and mattresses were piled on top of the cars. Even the little motor taxis (which are basically like scooters that can fit two people) somehow figured out a way to also fit a few bags of rice and actually strap several mattresses on top.
More and more families would gather outside with their goods without transportation. It became very crowded. Rene spent the majority of his time outside helping the people with there rice to the taxis. He was doing a great job a directing traffic and making sure people moved their goods to the side of the road so the taxis could get through. There were also a few hundred people outside near the exit who did not live in San Andreas and therefore were not eligible to receive the rice. Mothers, children, and men would surround me every time I went outside and plead for food...or ask me how they could get inside. I got used to saying ¨Solamente estoy ayudando otra organización. Hable con los chinitos.¨ I am only helping another organization. Speak with the Chinese people. It was sad to see. I don’t blame them. They are hungry too...but this is not a problem that will be solved over night. It will be a long time before everyone is helped. I liked helping the mothers out with their rice because I would talk to them about their children...with their rosy chapped cheeks. It gets them to open up a bit and sometimes I would take a picture. Everyone who actually received their goods where very appreciative. One woman even started crying because she was so thankful for our support. The people who were not eligible, however, were getting more frustrated. Eventually, people started receiving goods with false tickets and the police shut the operation down because the scene outside was getting hostile. At the end of the day, I was worn out...and very sunburned. I must’ve moved close to one hundred 110 lb bags of rice. My whole body ached and I started to shiver even though it was very hot out. I knew I needed to rest. That night a slept for 17 hours and I feel much better today! Helping out with the distribution was a great experience for both of us. I am glad we were there to help out Tzu Chi so we can live up to RMF´s motto ¨Friends Helping Friends.¨ We all have the same goal so collaboration between organizations is very important. We will be relying on help from other organizations during this entire process so what goes around, comes around. Relief Effort PERU Earthquake August 15, 2007 Peru Medical
Clinic (.pdf 558KB) You can help by donating here , and specifying 'Peru Earthquake Relief'' in the Note to Real Medicine. Please help us to help!
Photos and power point presentations: courtesy of Zoila Webster A magnitude-8 earthquake struck just off the coast of central Peru on August 15, 2007. Reports from Peru count more than 1,000 deaths and at least 3,000 injured people in towns along Peru’s central and southern coast. The majority of the damage and casualties occurred in Chincha Alta, Ica and Pisco. At least 80,000 people have suffered the quake’s impact through the loss of loved ones or destroyed or damaged homes. We are specifically asking for help to support the Children's Hospital of Peru-USA in Lima. There are not enough beds for all children who come from the earthquake affected areas and need medical care. Many have to sleep in the streets, and every day more injured children are found. Urgently needed are medical supplies, clothes and water.
Coastal Peru has a history of very large earthquakes. The August 15 shock originated just south of the source region of the magnitude 8.1 earthquake of October 1974 and just north of the source regions of major earthquakes that occurred in August 1942 (magnitude 7.7) and 1996 (magnitude 7.7). The largest coastal Peru earthquake of the last two centuries was the magnitude 9 earthquake of 1868, which was centered about 700 km southeast of the August 15 earthquake. The 1868 shock produced a tsunami that killed several thousand people along the South American coast and also caused damage in Hawaii. |
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Map
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