Living in Peru : your everyday companion

By Jobana Soto

Thousands of lives are lost a year from cancer, a seriously fatal and complicated disease that’s sweeping the country, being rated as the second largest cause of death in Peru. Despite cancer’s dreary image, many are surprised when they hear all it takes to prevent such a disease is an annual exam. This exam could very well be the difference between life and death.

Written by John W Wang, M.D.


Peru and its Challenges

I came to Peru for the second time with a team of 16 (students, professors and other volunteers), from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, primarily to spearhead a medical initiative in Ancash Province, some 300 miles north of Lima.

Up to 2 years ago, Peru was just a country in South America in my conscious thought. I knew nothing more about it, save for the fact that llamas flourished there.

In June 2006, I was invited by a Prof John Duffy of the University of Massachusetts to come to Ancash Province to help assess the medical situation in some 40 medical clinics serving some 100,000 people in the remote hinterlands of the high sierras of the Andean Mountain range.

Ancash Province

If Lima is a bustling city with 10 million inhabitants, many with cell phones, riding in cars, taxis and buses, enjoying the amenities of a modern city, these villagers in Ancash subsist on 2 soles per day, mainly on agricultural products eked out off the rough and unforgiving terrain.

These people have no running water, no electricity, no heat, and no indoor bathrooms or lavatories. They live in abject squalor and poverty, among mounds of refuse, sewage and animal dung. Their children are stunted, anemic and are malnourished, despite food aid and humanitarian efforts from the World Bank, UNICEF, WHO, many NGOs (non-governmental organizations), and religious organizations. They sleep huddled in adobe huts with just one room, with a smoky indoor wood fire to try to warm themselves. (This winter, because of an unusually cold snap, schools are starting later in an attempt to protect young children from exposure to the cold).

Medical Clinics

The medical clinics are largely bare structures with little medical equipment, staffed by nurses and health technicians. Doctors do visit but a few times each year, and then only for a few hours.
None of the clinics I visited had any microscopes or any facility for making any examination of blood, sputum or stools. The nurses see their patients, listen to their complaints, do a cursory examination, and prescribe medications, based on their best judgment.

Many of the children go on to die, and indeed, according to statistics, a good percentage of all deaths in Peru are of children under the age of 10 years. During my last trip to Ancash Province, a mother tearfully recounted having 6 children, 3 of whom are dead, and the other 3 struggling with illnesses that no one seems to be able to diagnose or cure.