working this October with one of just two medical teaching hospitals
in Nicaragua.
The new program will be at the Hospital Escuela Oscar Danielo Rosales
Arguello (HEODRA). Leon (which has an accent over the "o") is the
country's second largest city.
Beginning with a 7 a.m. shift change lecture by PINCC Director Dr. Kay
Taylor for 30 residents and attending physicians about cervical
cancer, visual inspection with acetic acid (vinegar), and PINCC, our
team then moved on to a clinic to treat 9 patients hand-picked by the
hospital.
Of the nine, six needed LEEP procedures and one needed cryotherapy.
So in just one day with very few patients, seven lives were saved
because the womens' pre-cancerous lesions were properly treated.
The hospital relied on the PINCC LEEP machine today because they're
missing two important parts for their machine, and their cryotherapy
setup is broken. So they have been treating patients with an outdated, more radical procedure in the meantime.
The future program will train dozens of doctors and nurses to examine
and treat Nicaraguan women, saving lives by using the simple protocol
PINCC uses. Increasing the number of in-country medicos skilled in
this technique -- and donating needed equipment -- will particularly
help women in outlying areas where help is often nonexistent and death
rates from cervical cancer are among the highest in the world.
(Watch for an upcoming post for photos of today's procedures.)
-- Larry Shushan
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