About Medical Teams
The Vine Trust aims to encourage health professionals from the Western world to use part of their annual leave and for a short time use their skills to help the poor of this Amazonian region. The trips are for two weeks (one week from USA); it is easy and relatively inexpensive to extend the trip for a few more days to take a trip to Machu Picchu or other parts of Peru.
In addition to the two week trips the Project has opportunities for volunteer doctors to spend three months working both in Belen and on the Amazon Hope. This year three family doctors are undertaking this work which will bring huge benefits to the Project.
In July 2004 the Vine Trust's first UK Medical team left from Edinburgh to work on the Amazon Hope, a 24 metre ex Royal Navy vessel, on the river Amazon in Peru. The team of eight health professionals was the first of regular teams to leave the comforts and sophistication of the health service in the UK, taking their skills to help some of the world's poor. In 2005 there were six teams; in 2006 thirteen teams, more than a team a month, and in 2007 there will be 14 teams. From next year, 2008, we hope to be sending 2 teams each month with both Amazon Hope and Amazon Hope 2 in service.
These medical teams have been taking Primary Health Care to the villagers on the banks of the River Amazon and its tributaries, most of whom have very limited access to health care due to geography and poverty.
Medical teams are usually made up of eight health professionals. A minimum of two doctors, one or two dentists, a pharmacist, nurses and dental nurses. As most of the work is Primary Care, the doctors in the team are usually family doctors / GP s, GP registrars, A/E // ER doctors, pediatricians or general physicians. On board the Amazon Hope there is a Peruvian doctor and nursing staff.
There are very few investigations available on board or in the medical centre although small laboratories will be established this year, so teams have to rely on their clinical skills. The villagers all speak Spanish so unless a fluent Spanish speaker, a team member will learn very quickly the importance of communication in their own clinical practice! Fortunately there are always translators on board.
Most team members comment that the whole experience of working on the Amazon Hope impacts positively on their professional development and also at a personal level. It is easy to read about poverty and see it on the television but it is a totally different matter to be working with the poor and seeing the consequences of such poverty.