Wild dogs, shamans and challenges in Peru

Working with WFH in the remote regions of Peru, Alice Anderson has dealt with situations far removed from her daily practice as a physical therapist in Dallas, Texas.

Alice and her team first visited Lima in 2005 as part of the WFH twinning program and they’ve returned five times. They began by training physicians and other healthcare workers in the main hospitals, but soon realized there were serious needs outside the capital.

“We found that many doctors from the countryside didn’t recognize hemophilia symptoms,” says Alice. “With a WFH grant we started an outreach program in the southeast of Peru. People came from far away for treatment. Many had never even met anyone else with a bleeding disorder. They knew nothing about how hemophilia is passed on. They had never heard of treating a joint,” recalls Alice. “We were a long way from Texas.”

That distance became painfully clear to Alice when a six-year-old boy with hemophilia was attacked by a wild dog. His hand was badly mauled and, with no medical care close by, the family took their shaman’s advice to burn the dog’s hairs and rub the ashes into the wound.

“Guess what? The treatment didn’t work,” says Alice as she recounts the sad story. “There was one bus a week to Lima and by the time the parents got the little boy to hospital, his whole arm had turned gangrenous.”

Fortunately the local doctor who worked with Alice’s team treated the boy with an emergency supply of factor concentrates. The donated products made repeated surgery possible and the boy’s hand was saved.

Experiences like this highlight the huge gap between care in developed countries and in developing ones. And they have taught Alice to develop different approaches when treating patients who lack basic medical resources and knowledge

“We have to be creative. Many people from rural areas don’t have access to the ice or refrigeration needed for the most common treatment of bleed pain,” explains Alice. “We’ve taught patients and families how to make an ice pack using two parts water and one part rubbing alcohol in a sealable plastic bag. You put the pack into a mountain stream to get cold and then apply it to the painful area.”

Alice focuses on education as the key to helping people help themselves. She conducts workshops on joint protection through physical activity and gives patients home exercise programs to safely strengthen their muscles and reduce spontaneous bleeds.

“I’m grateful to the WFH for supporting our work. The experience has changed me and I’m inspired by the tenacity of the people we meet in Peru. I’ve also learned how to think outside the box more quickly back home when faced with a problem. At the same time I realize how blessed we are in the U.S. to have advanced medical facilities... not to mention refrigerators.”