During the colonial and initial post-colonial times slaves who were brought over from Africa to Brazil to work on sugar and rubber plantations at times managed to escape. They settled in very remote small communities along the Amazonas river and even up till now the Brazilian health system (even though working hard to offer public health to all of the almost 200 million Brazilians) has not quite caught up with them. Organizations such as "Fundacao Esperanca" send some relief with medical teams and supplies of essential medicines. This organization sends 10 times per year (once per month other than in November and December when the tropical rains are too heavy) a small team of 10-12 volunteers up the river to three remote communities. There is always a medical doctor and a pharmacist on the team, but most of the others are medical and pharmacy students. They rent a boat for the week and bring kits of essential medicines to the communities where they train community members how to assess infections and diseases, and then how to administer medications. People from surrounding communities know the schedule and come to one of these three communities for the opportunity to get consultations and some primary health care.
The logistics of such a trip brought back lots of memories for me to my years with MSF (Doctors without Borders). All the work "behind the scenes" to get the kits ready for example:
This year an American volunteer was able to join the team. She is a pharmacology student.
A proud team doing wonderful medical outreach work and loving what they are doing!
Very attractive presentation. You make the most out of the images to catch the eye of the reader(s). I need to learn your technique to better my own blog(s). Jos, I'll get this out to a few more individuals, including Dr. Bill Chase, who is a Rotarian from way back. As you noted, our dental clinic is named after him. More later. Obrigado.
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