An Update from Perú – Dr. Bob Gehringer

In Cajamarca again, lovely old central city, cathedrals with stone gingerbread facades, robust shoulders of green mountains all around.  It’s May 1, International Worker’s Day, a federal holiday in Perú and in much of the world. Dr. Mary Boyer and I are on an extensive training trip to check out the trainers we’ve trained in newborn resuscitation.

Our hotel is on the corner of the Plaza de Armas, the site of the assassination of Atahuallpa, the last Incan king, at the hands of Francisco Pizarro and friends in 1533.  After obtaining a huge ransom, the invaders plan was to have Atahuallpa draw and quartered anyway.  Body part separation portending bad karma in the afterlife, the “merciful” Spaniards strangled him instead, extremities intact.  Francisco never was nominated for the Mister Congeniality award, and he himself was assassinated in Lima eight years later.

After almost 500-years, this morning the Plaza is full of young families chasing toddlers, couples with love puppy eyes snuggling on park benches, and older ladies from the countryside in their skirts and leggings and tall wide-brimmed straw hats, looking vaguely uncomfortable in the city.

After two very busy weeks, first in Lima training 36 neonatal nurse specialists from all over the country to teach the basics of newborn resuscitation and to create local training programs, we traveled to Arequipa to do multiple workshops for a total of 300 participants, mostly final year nursing and midwifery university students.  Here in Cajamarca, we’ll have a day with the regional College of Nurses and another with the College of Midwives. We’re then off to Tumbes and Piura.

Stay connected to our on-going efforts to ensure every healthcare provider in Perú is trained in newborn resuscitation and capable of saving a babies life. We are excited to know our efforts are making a difference.