Air Guard medics deliver much needed treatment to rural Peru

A group of Georgia Air Guard doctors and nurses spent two weeks last summer treating people in one of the poorest and most isolated regions in the Western Hemisphere.

Forty members of the 165th Medical Squadron provided free care to people living in and around Aycucho, Peru, a small, impoverished city nestled 9,000 feet above sea level in the heart of the rugged Andes Mountains.

The deployment was another in a series of medical exercises the National Guard conduct annually in Latin American and the Caribbean. National Guard leaders consider the missions mutually beneficial: medical personnel get valuable training while providing treatment where doctors are extremely scarce.

The AIr Guard medics first visited Huamanguilla, a small town about 40 miles over dirt roads from Ayacucho. They set up a clinic in the town's school, where patients began lining up before the medics arrived. The facility offered a range of medical services, including dentistry, optometry, gynecology and general health.

Much of treatment was routine checkups or tooth extractions; however, doctors did see broken bones and lacerations. They also saw many children with respiratory problems. It was also not uncommon to see entire families infected with parasites, unit members said.

While they waited, patients received classes on general hygiene practices and water purification. The U.S. State Department estimates that about than 90 percent of rural residences in Peru lack basic potable water and sewerage, making the population prone to waterborne diseases. In the early 1990s, the country was hit by a well-documented cholera epidemic.

The caregivers primarily used medicine and other medical supplies donated by various national drug companies and businesses in Savannah, Ga., where the unit is based. They also fitted patients with new eyeglasses courtesy of "Project Cyclops," a Wisconsin Air National Guard administered-program.

The unit set up and ran three separate field clinics-two in Aycucho in addition to the one in Huamanguillaover nine days, seeing nearly 6,500 patients.

-By Capt David C. Simons

Copyright National Guard Association of the United States Nov 2000
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