What an onrush of patients

Waiting rooms and corridors bursting at the seams

This morning we carefully made our way by car through the huge crowd.  Dr Reinhard Kühn commented: “One simply cannot handle such an onrush!”  Despite that fact that hundreds of people are clogging up rooms and corridors, everything is surprisingly calm and disciplined.  Pictures can hardly tell the whole truth, you have to have seen it for yourself.  All these people are on a mission.  Some of them have travelled over thirty hours – passing several hospitals on their way to Curahuasi – in order to be told the correct diagnosis and be treated accordingly.

Four people, sent by their village community somewhere in Cusco State, approach our administration team: “Please build the same hospital for us.  We will gladly give you the plot of land you require!”

Late that evening in the intensive care unit doctors and nurses are fighting for a patient’s life.  He had kidney failure.  He made it to the hospital, despite an incredibly long journey, but then suffered cardiac arrest.

We must, however, get some sleep at night to be fresh for the next day.  Tuesday won’t be much easier.

A queue 250m long outside of the Hospital Diospi Suyana.
Entrance to the doctor’s rooms.
You will not find one free seat in waiting room #1.
The front main entrance: “We also want to come in!”
Rear entrance. Patience is called for.
A delegation from Cusco State: “Please build the same hospital for us in our neighbourhood!”
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