MAP Provides Medicine for Peru’s Poor
October 3rd, 2008
Silva Armas, a mother of two children ages 3 and 7, visited a free clinic in Lima, Peru where she received free medical care and medicine for her children. Here, volunteer Dr. Julio Paz treats her younger son Johan, who had been suffering from a severe cough. Photo courtesy of MAP International
Jack Morse, Public Information Officer for MAP International.
As a nonprofit relief and development agency, each year Medical Assistance Programs (MAP) International provides millions of dollars in medication for thousands of U.S. doctors on medical mission teams. They travel to more than 70 locations across the globe to help people who often subsist on less than $1 a day. There, these medical teams provide healthcare for children like 3-year-old Johan, whose mother, Silva, cannot afford medical care for him.
We began early, loading box after box of medication and other supplies onto the bus, filling the back seats before beginning to strap items to the top. Within an hour, a small band of doctors, dentists and other medical professionals from the United States and South America, along with myself, were weaving our way through dank and dirty streets along the outskirts of Lima.
The sprawling Peruvian capital, with a population of more than 8 million people, can be a dismal place. A gray sheet of mist and dust often shrouds the area, and despite its proximity to the Pacific Ocean, there is seldom so much as a breeze. Dilapidated buildings crowd the city outside the few wealthier districts. Piles of trash typically line the streets. Pollution creates a risk of respiratory diseases among its inhabitants, many of whom have little access to consistent and quality medical care.
As a writer and photographer for MAP International, I was traveling with a volunteer medical team equipped with medicines MAP had provided in the form of Travel Packs, portable kits of pharmaceutical supplies designed for use in developing countries. The team would be in the area for two weeks, operating free clinics in low-income areas each day.
Silva Armas, a mother of two children ages 3 and 7, had heard of the clinics from a friend. Her younger son, Johan, had for days been suffering from a cough that was steadily progressing. Silva, who could not even afford vitamins to give the young boy, gathered him into her arms on a Saturday morning and walked to one of the clinics, held at a church about a mile away.
A pediatrician named Julio Paz treated Johan and prescribed an antibiotic. Silva took the prescription to the clinic’s pharmacy, where she had it filled at no charge with the medicines MAP supplied.
Dr. Paz typically worked through long lines of children at the clinics, often well past dark. “We hate to turn anyone away,” he told me at one point. “Our team may not be back for another year, so we try to see as many people as we can before leaving.”
Patients who needed prescriptions would weave their way to the pharmacy, invariably located in a small room where volunteers had hurriedly unpacked boxes of medication and organized it.
Silva told me the free medication was essential for her young son.
“I do not know what I would have done otherwise,” she said in Spanish. “This clinic is very important because our community is very poor. We do not have many resources. We do not have enough money to afford medicine. But here, it is free.”
Since joining MAP in January 2006, Jack Morse has traveled to more than a dozen countries where MAP is providing relief through resources such as medicines, medical clinics and healthcare programs. He is based in Atlanta.
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