Huambutio news

This week there have been a number of exciting advancements with the Huambutio project.

Anjanette and some of the nurses visited the government health post in Lucre and had a very promising conversation with the doctor there. Lucre is the closest health post to Huambutio (2 bus rides journey from Huambutio) it was good to learn more about the services they provide , to explain about our proposed project and to hear the medical staff in Lucre make suggestions about health services that they do not currently provide that they feel would benefit the community.

Next week we plan to start visiting people in their homes in Huambutio to carry out health questionnaires, this will give us much more information about the needs of the population and an opportunity to get to know people. Before we start knocking on doors the nurses felt that it was important to hold a meeting with the community to explain about our project and to ask permission to visit their homes to do the questionnaires.

Well we had a false start when the original date for the agreed meeting seemed to have been forgotten , the president of the Huambutio community board suggested that 9 am Sunday morning would be a good time to meet. Six days a week the community work in their fields and they often will hold general meetings on a Sunday. Well we were not so sure than anyone would turn up, Carla and Carlotta from El Puente Iglesia worked hard putting up posters and distributing fliers and we prayed and hoped people would attend.

Imagine our surprise when we arrived and found the community hall full with over a hundred people even before 9 am, in our experience in Peru people being on time is nothing short of a miracle and being early is completely unheard of!

Well we had a great meeting Nancy one of our nurses did an excellent job explaining about the project in spanish and in quechua and answering tricky questions. We were generally very well received by the community and we are hopeful that next week they will be open to answering our questions. Elisabeth is the government health promoter for Huambutio she has agreed to go with Carla and the nurses at 0600 in the morning, (before people leave to work in their fields ) next week to start the questionnaires. Both her support and the nurses being prepared to start work at 0600 is more than we could have hoped for!

We also have exciting medical license news, Scott made a flying visit to Arequipa last week to take back Anjanette's medical papers from the University there, the process is not moving and we have decided to pursue another route.

Anjanette will apply for a 1 year temporary license to practice medicine in Peru from MMI an international organisation who we have previously worked with on short term medical campaigns. The MMI organisers are very helpful and it seems that this will be a very quick and straightforward process , it will probably take a couple of weeks as opposed to the couple of years we have been waiting so far!