Macará

Dr. Marco Jaramillo Maldonado stands in Macará’s hospital emergency area – a room with two cots, a cart and a few shelves holding gauze and bandages.  “It’s not an ideal situation,” he says.  “You have to adapt to it.” 

Built in 1970 as a school, Macará’s one-hallway hospital holds twenty-five beds and serves 20,000 people living in the Macará area.  The hospital has only one small autoclave, the basic equipment needed for surgery, and little else.  Three doctors on a rotating schedule deliver babies, treat tropical diseases, work the emergency room and perform minor surgeries.  If necessary, the hospital will transport critical patients to Loja, nearly four hours away.

The maternity ward has improvised delivery tables and in the words of Dr. Jaramillo, “No body has died yet here, just because God is great.”

Students toured the town, participated in a meeting with the community leaders involved in the local Healthy Spaces project, toured the hospital, an army health clinic, and a slaughterhouse to study tropical disease transmission factors.

In 1999, almost 2,000 of the 20,000 people in Macará contracted malaria.  In the outskirts of town, located five minutes from the Ecuadorian /Peruvian border, an estimated 5,000 people live without running water and basic sanitary conditions.

Student Reflection

By: Christine Nardi
Second-year  OUCOM student

After a four-hour journey, we arrived in Macará, a city near the Peruvian border where malaria is endemic.  We attended a meeting with the community members who are involved with the Healthy Spaces program – which promotes education, sanitation and economic development near the Ecuadorian /Peruvian border.

After meeting with community officials, we visited Macará’s hospital where many of the students were shocked by the lack of supplies and equipment.  The doctor at the hospital said it best when he said, “this here is another world.”

We also visited the military clinic and the city slaughterhouse.  Provisions at these sites were also poor, and it was apparent that the programs being instilled by the Healthy Spaces program would be very beneficial for the community.

Slaughterhouse, Macara