Amazon - Africa Aid
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Hospital Ship
In the central Amazon Region, thousands of people live up to 3 days· boat ride from the Fundação Esperança clinic. Luke, knowing he had to reach the people with medical facilities, asked friends in Phoenix for a medical boat. In 1972, they purchased a the San Diego passenger ferry, the POINT LOMA for $15,000.
Over the next 18 months, with donated materials and volunteer labor, the POINT LOMA was converted into the hospital ship, Esperança, complete with operating room, medical and dental clinics, laboratory, pharmacy and living quarters for the U.S.S. Bunker Hill; navy reservists and local church groups did much pf the labor and over $50,000 of medical supplies was donated. The ESPERANÇA was christened in June, 1973.
The ESPERANÇA was loaded aboard a coffee boat and arrived in Brazil May 10, 1974. It was soon plying the waters of the Amazon, where people had never seen , much less received medical treatment from doctors, dentist or nurses. Believing that even minimal charges for services helped people maintain their self respect, Fundação Esperança encouraged people to give what they could afford.
The ESPERANÇA soon sprouted with chicken coops and a pigpen, as grateful visitors contributed what they could, mostly animals and produce in this cash - short, barter economy.
In 1983, with the completion of surgical facilities on shore, the weary ESPERANÇA was retired after 40 years of service (from 1943). It was a replaced by the smaller faster ESPERANÇA II, a boat more suited to the primary mission of training and supervising health care providers.
To this day, Esperança medical personnel constantly travel along the mighty Amazon and its tributaries, visiting and upgrading the skills of the health care auxiliaries, or "barefoot doctors," as they are known.