Peru 2

We have been working at the hospital in Peru for going on 2 weeks now, and are really starting to get the flow of things. The first picture above is the view out of the front door of the hospital which overlooks the surrounding mountains, which obviously are beautiful. The second picture is the waiting room of the clinic area, or consulta. Patients must come beforehand (usually the day before) and get a ticket in order to have an appointment with one of the doctors. They then wait until their name is called.

We wanted to tell you briefly about 2 interesting patients we have seen. One was an 8 year old boy, whose mother came in because she was concerned about how he was walking. It was not clear what the problem was until the exam. His calf muscles were hypertrophied and he walked with a lordotic gait. It turned out that he had a fairly advanced case of Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy. The next case was a 13 year old boy whose father was concerned that when he was angry, his face turned blue. On exam, this child was markedly cyanotic, with clubbing of his hands, and had an O2 sat of only 77% on room air. He most likely has a progressing congenital heart defect. We referred him to a cardiologist, but the nearest one is 3 hours away and the family is uncertain if they can afford to go. Although Peru does have some national healthcare there are very limited resources for patients like this that have chronic and such serious diseases, especially the Quechua people. They are the descendants of the Incans, but are now the poorest people group in Peru.


The next 2 photos are during a hike we recently took that has views of the surrounding mountains. It is the rainy season here, but fortunately it usually rains at night and the days are beautiful. These pictures are an example of the amazing landscape in this region. Although there is marked poverty here, these people also have this beautiful reminder of God's awesome power in front of them daily.