Here is what you can do!

Hey everyone-I hope you have enjoyed reading the blog, keeping up with my adventures, thoughts and stories. I was thrilled to come down here with all of my financial (and every other kind!!) of support. But if you ever feel that you would like to make another contribution to the work that we do down here, this is something you can do that will go to the people who need it.
Between interns, Peruvian friends and clinic staff we pay for medicines, operations and procedures. We currently have a small clinic patient fund (the one set up for patient needs...example: an older lady comes in off of the street and the Physician tells her she needs an x ray....lets say AP lat..Well that's about 40 soles. Say she just doesn't have it, and has no children to help her. Well, this is just for her) This fund just got cut from 100 soles monthly to 50. That’s $35.22 in USD as of the exchange rate today. That’s it! Some of you may wonder how can that be all that you have for patients?? Isn’t this a medical ministry? Aren’t you supposed to be doing these things and providing these services for free!?? Well the fact is we practically are. Our doctors are seeing patients for 3, 5 or 7 soles. Medicines in the pharmacy (many of them from the states) are cheaper and we often give them away. The money that is collected from these sources goes to pay the salaries of our Peruvian staff which as to date is about 12 people. The fact is if we gave absolutely free care to all (which we would love to do!) we would have to close our doors…and then we wouldn’t be able to help anyone. What this fund (and the constant collections we take up) goes toward is those expenses that are out of our control. For example an actual surgery for a patient in the public hospital could cost as little as s/3.50 (Yes! It is actually just the cost of the paperwork that you pay for.) Now that is for a patient who has public health insurance and doesn’t count the gloves, medicines, suture materials, central lines, taxi rides, etc. that you have to pay for. Or maybe it’s a 90 sole set of X-rays or a 200 sole ultrasound. Without these we cant make a good diagnosis and move forward with potential treatments, and some times our patients…especially the most needy ones or those who don’t have family just have to wait and deal with the pain and watch their conditions get worse.

The hours of waiting in the hospital or home visits are the perfect opportunities for us and the deacons of the church to talk with these patients. With subjects like death, pain and suffering often on the mind it doesn’t take long for those big questions to come up, often resulting in opportunities to discuss the church, the Gospel, and of course my all time favorite "So you Presbyterians are like, Catholics, right?” This makes a huge difference in their lives and really outside of the mission ad the church no one has ever (had the time or interest to) help these folks in such a consistent manner.
40 USD, 75 USD, 15 USD, 300 USD…Literally those are life or death numbers…please think about contributing to out patient fund. Even if it is only 20 dollars, that’s more than the monthly fund we have right now! I know it is something I will continue to do (even as I live on student loans!) Every person that receives help fills out a ficha socioeconomico (I cant remember for the life of me what that is in English! Something like an economic survey) and deacons from the church visit them in their homes to talk and confirm the reality of their situation before help is given. We never give these patients cash, but rather accompany them to the hospital or diagnostic center. All receipts are kept as well, so everyone knows exactly where the money is going! Please consider helping these folks out! I know that if the Peruvian employees at the Clinic can find a way to contribute you can to!

Checks can be sent to:

Christian Missionary Society
P.O. Box 53363 Knoxville, TN 37950-3363
Phone: (865) 684-4580
(Wichanzao Clinic Patient Fund written on the memo line)