Expreso Esperanza: Taking humanitarian medicine to rural Uruguay by bus

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Converted from a bus into a health care center, the Expreso Esperanza travels from early in the morning to different localities in rural Uruguay, taking its “humanitarian medicine” to over 5,000 people.

Amid small talk, laughter and jokes, its staff sets off from the border town of Rivera, in the north of the country, to one of the over 20 destinations they visit.

On roads where the green landscape is dotted with hills, plantations and animals, the health care workers travel up to 3 hours to visit what some of their patients call “their family.”

A DEEP URUGUAY

Since 2011, Cuban doctor Iván Sotomayor has been among those who covered thousands of kilometers aboard the Expreso Esperanza. He assures that these travels reach a “deep Uruguay” that is “truly unknown to many” and where there are many shortages.

“We are talking about people who, until recently, did not have electricity, who do not know a city, who have never been to a movie theater,” says the family medicine professional.

Therefore, he cannot hide his satisfaction when he tells how much they have achieved through this plan within the framework of the Japanese Non-Reimbursable Financial Assistance Program to Support Community Projects for Human Security in Uruguay.

Nor does he do so when he recalls how patients who have moved from one location to another over the years come up to greet him with affection. He even points out that some people who chose him as their family doctor refused to be treated by one of his colleagues.

From his particular experience on board the Expreso Esperanza, he leaves a message to other professionals and to those who are on their way to becoming one: there are many beautiful things in Uruguay and a hospital is not the only place for a doctor or nurse to work. “The important thing is to value the human being and always try to provide better care,” he concludes.

HUMANITARIAN MEDICINE

Pablo Prestes, the current bus doctor, explained his and his colleagues’ experience working in this environment. He asserts that the goal is to “improve the quality of life” of each individual who lives in these places, with whom they build “a friendship.”

“I emphasize the values of humanitarian principles in the Expreso Esperanza team. We stop looking at the sick patients and instead analyze their entire environment. We have to know that health is not only the absence of disease, but that it is a biopsychosocial wellbeing. We try to attend to these 3 aspects,” he explains.

Happy with what he does, he says that when he got his medical degree he never imagined that this would be his job and emphasizes that it was “very gratifying” that such an opportunity presented itself.

That is why, from a different position than that of most of his colleagues, Prestes recommends to the new generations “not to lose their focus” and “not to base themselves solely on commercial medicine, but rather on humanitarian medicine.”

PART OF THE FAMILY

The concepts addressed by these doctors are corroborated by Susana de Armas, one of the over 5,000 people who have benefited from this Japanese donation to Uruguay. An inhabitant of the small town of Paso Ataques (north), where some 100 people live, she assures that the bus is “very important” for all the villagers.

In addition, she emphasizes the way in which the doctors reach the people, irrespective of the circumstances. “Everything they can provide, they do so with great affection. May the Expreso Esperanza always be there, because that is the campaign’s goal. May they never fail us because the truth is that the care they provide is wonderful, they are already part of our family,” she says.