MEDLIFE

The summer Mobile Clinic trip season is officially underway, with simultaneous clinics and development projects happening this week in Lima, Peru and Tena, Ecuador. Check out some photo highlights from the past few days in Lima:

Yesterday's clinic took place in Ventanilla, north of Lima, Peru. 

Students from schools including WVU, VCU, North Dakota and Purdue worked tirelessly to help build the first staircase in Buena Vista, a new settlement in Lima, and enjoyed getting to know the neighbors as they worked together.

Photos and interviews by Rachel Hoffman

First, Silvia checks in with a nurse, who writes down her basic information and creates her patient history.Mobile Clinic volunteers, with the supervision of a local nurse, take Silvia and Janice’s temperature, height, weight, and blood pressure.

 At the doctor's station, a MEDLIFE doctor listens to the patient's symptoms and writes a prescription if necessary.The pharmacist dispenses antibiotics and multivitamins for Janice and iron supplements for Silvia.

Silvia Huafatoca came to a MEDLIFE Mobile Clinic in Tena, Ecuador last December with her 2-year old daughter, Janice. The clinic took place in a schoolhouse just down the street from the small house she shares with her husband, daughter, parents, and three siblings. Having never heard of MEDLIFE before, Silvia approached the clinic cautiously, and was relieved to find out that doctors and medications would be provided free of charge.

"My daughter has a cough right now," she told us. "I'm glad the doctors came here, close to my house, because sometimes we can't get to the clinic." She said the cost of transportation (40 cents each way for a two-hour bus ride) and time spent waiting at the closest health clinic often prevent her from going. When Janice was just one year old, Silvia took her there for a bad cough, and she was diagnosed with pneumonia and given antibiotics. Between the ride and the wait times, going to the doctor took a full day, and sometimes Silvia didn't have time or money for treatment. "This was a better experience, it's a lot closer," she said of the Mobile Clinic. "You just go to the doctor here, and the pharmacy's right over there!" 

Last week, students from universities all over the United States traveled to Tena, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, to participate in a Mobile Clinic! Check out some photo highlights below: 

Photos by Luis Herrera

The Spring 2013 Mobile Clinic season kicked off yesterday with a Mobile Clinic in Villa El Salvador, Lima, Peru, staffed by enthusiastic volunteers from schools including University of Michigan, University of Florida, and Dominican University. Check out some photo highlights below, and stay tuned for more updates from the clinics happening this week in Lima and Esmeraldas, Ecuador!

We just recieved these photos from Ccaccaccollo, a community outside Cusco, Peru, where we constructed new bathroom facilities starting in August. The community has been putting the finishing touches on the project, and school director Maria Teresa Flores tells us, "The bathrooms look great, and the kids and I are very grateful to MEDLIFE for completing this project." 

Our three Ecuador Summer Interns have recently arrived in country and are starting off their first week with a Mobile Clinic in Tena, Ecuador. Below, a photo update from one of our interns, Jennie Tian, reflecting her view of the first few days of our July 2012 Mobile Clinic in Tena:

Check out our photo update from this week's mobile clinic in Lima, Peru! We're half way through the week, and looking forward to seeing more patients in different communities tomorrow and Friday:

MEDLIFE has been working in Pamplona Alta since March 2010.  The majority of Mobile Clinics and MEDLIFE Fund projects in Peru serve the communities of Pamplona Alta.  Zenobia Gonsalves, our media intern in Lima, captured the shots below.

Located in the hills surrounding Lima, Pamplona Alta is a shantytown, or pueblo joven, characterized by conditions of extreme poverty and a lack of infrastructural development.  Now housing more than 20,000 residents, it was first populated in the 1990's when massive numbers of Peruvians immigrated to Lima from the rural countryside -- either displaced by the Shining Path terrorism that marked this decade, or looking for better opportunity in Peru's capital city.

Dirt paths crisscross the valley walls, reaching the families who reside at the top -- a long climb from the main avenue below.  Can you spot the three MEDLIFE staircases?