Covid-19 medical relief in the Peruvian Amazon

The microproject to support medical volunteers working to serve rural communities in the Peruvian Amazon has wrapped up. This project enabled a qualified senior medical student to spend 6 weeks at our Orosa River community during the summer of 2022. This clinic serves a number of indigenious and campesino communities, and is some 125 km east of the city of Iquitos, Peru. Access between the Orosa River and Iquitos is only by boat, and most local people do not have the financial means to travel such a distance, so the local clinic plays a very important role in helping keep rural residents in good health, and in responding to medical emergencies. When area residents have a medical need, or simply desire medical check-ups for children, they can access the clinic in 15 minutes to 2 or 3 hours (depending on the location of the community of residence and river levels). Access to goverment clinics further afield (in Yanashi) or to the much more distant hospital in Iquitos can take between 3 and 24 hours, one-way, plus there are always associated costs for food, lodging and local transport, which makes such visits prohibitively expensive for many rural people. 

Having advanced medical students or degreed professionals assisting at the clinic not only provides ongoing service to the local communities, but it also helps to serve for training and professional development for the medical technician who permanently staffs the clinic. 

Our sincere thanks to the donors who supported this microproject. The total sum might not be great, but the impact that those funds had is immeasureable. 

Thank you from the communities of the Orosa River!

Links:

• The Project Amazonas website