Day 3 - CARE III

Photo: Dinner in Arequipa at "Tinto and Asado"

Photo: HBI's Peru Country Director - Daniel Bueno Rojas

I am back in Lima awaiting a flight to the U.S. - but the data collection continues. The team spent their morning hours surveying the principle Colca Valley town of Chivay. Our Director of Operations (Ben Grass) told me that things went great and they were able to survey the entire community.

The group will be surveying the rest of the week and hopes to complete 500 surveys. My fingers are crossed. The more surveys we can complete the greater the value of our research. At this point, we just need to keep plugging away. The data will speak for itself once we have it all collected.

I just had a really interesting meeting with Dr. Francisco Cisnero and our Peru Country Director (Dr. Daniel Bueno Rojas). Dr. Francisco, an ophthamologist who was trained in the Dominican Republic, just completed a fellowship training in Colombia in cataract procedures. His family has run a clinic in Lima (Nahui Clinic) for a number of years. They are one of the most respected ophthamology centers in all of Peru.

Francisco has taken over the directorship of an NGO that works with cataract and eye surgeries for impoverished communities. He wants to ensure that every patient who needs surgery in Peru can get the surgery - regardless of their ability to pay. He told me that it is assumed that on average there are 3,000 cataract cases per 1,000,000 patients. Ideally, a country should be able to absorb this 3,000 patient case load.

This "ideal" is predicted on having a fully trained and motivated workforce. In Chile, as Francisco told me, the medical community is able to attend to all of the eye surgery needs of their populous. In Peru and Bolivia, the number of cases that the medical system is able to handle is well below 1,000. Francisco and his NGO are working with the Clinton Foundation to provide cataract surgeries to patients in need.

Francisco has a clinic in the Magdelana neighborhood of Lima. He has great desires for the clinic and contacted HBI to see if we can help to connect him with other organizations or projects working in Peru who can help to expand their services and increase his ability to help the poor.

This is an exciting opportunity and I am hopeful for whatever may arise. It is amazing how much can come when we work together. More to come.