Next stop for the hospital boat: Puerto Nariño, Colombia

Blog vol 5.19. Next stop for the hospital boat: Puerto Nariño, Colombia.

Last Friday the office manager at Burlington Eyecare, Karen, got on a plane for a much needed “vacation”. As they say, a change is as good as a rest. She was going not to Puerto Vallarta, but to Puerto Nariño, not to Mexico, but to the Amazon jungle.

If you have been following, you have heard about the work Medical Missions International has been doing around the world, and specifically the new work with the Mau-pata, (House of Life from the Ticuna language), a “Mercy” ship that travels through the Amazon basin as a mobile hospital clinic with onboard surgical suites.

We have had the privilege of raising awareness and funds for the eye clinic onboard and now Karen is there to help with that clinic.  In fact, a whole team of people from across North America have gone to offer their expertise and help for a two-week clinic.

Karen left from Toronto, flew to Bogota, took a connector to Leticia, Colombia, then got on a  smaller boat, The Rick Skinner ( named after a good friend who died October, 2015, while in Ethiopia on a medical mission trip), and travelled 75 km up the Amazon to the small village of Puerto Nariño where the Mau-pata was stopped.  The only way to get there is by boat.  This is in the heart of the indigenous populated Amazon basin with about 80% of the settlement's 6,000 inhabitants being from the Ticuna, Cocama and Yagua ethnic groups.  The team set up there for a 3 day clinic. 

Two days in, and Karen reports: “So far: Eye exams 275, glasses dispensed 263, Cataract surgeries 17, Pterygia 5,  Over 200 prescriptions given out per day by the family doctors. Dental: 120 patients seen.”  Tomorrow they will do some post operation checks and then prepare for the next stop.

There are the political realities of the Amazon to negotiate; instead of heading to villages on the Peru side (authorization did not arrive in time), they are going back down the Amazon to Brazil, no shortage of work.

Go Karen! Go team!

The good doctor