With exam beds, a full stash of pharmaceuticals and that distinct clinical smell, there?s nothing unusual about Dr. Pam Cairn?s medical center.
Except it?s on water.
Cairns is the medical director on the Amazon Hope 2, a 75-foot-long ex-naval ship converted into a floating clinic that made a stop in Baltimore this week on its way to treat people in remote parts of the Peruvian Amazon.
“It?s a wee ship with a big future,” Cairns said. “It?s a dream we are giving them.”
Vine Trust, a Scotland-based charity working to stabilize impoverished communities across the globe, owns the ship. Cairns and her crew are focusing on shantytowns along the Tigre, Nanay and Ampiyaru Rivers, across the globe in Peru, where abandoned children roam the streets and drink and bathe in water infested with raw sewage.
Embarking April 28 from Bristol, England, the crew made its way to Bermuda, then up to New York and Philadelphia before arriving in Baltimore on Tuesday.
They head to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Sunday and will continue south to Peru. There, Cairns said volunteers will treat mostly children for parasites, malaria, stomach disorders and skin infections. Equipped with a dentists? chair, a pharmacy and several examination beds, on-board medical teams can also treat asthma, diabetes, epilepsy and correct cataracts and hernias.
This year, Cairns said the crew is trying to visit each community once every three months, bringing immunizations, a mid-wife and health educators each time. An ophthalmologist has agreed to join them in November.
Vine Trust also mobilizes work parties to build homes, wells, schools and holiday homes to give the locals a place to earn their own income, said Alan Cairns, Pam?s husband and development director.
Cairns said the stops, like the one in Baltimore, are intended to encourage health professionals to join them. The ship requires seven members to sail, so Cairns, her husband and development director, Alan Cairns, and most volunteers fly to the destinations.
Volunteers can help by giving up one week, she said.
“In our experience, most people we meet would really like to join us,” Cairns said. “But they can?t give up two or three months ? they have families and careers.”
