01 August 2001

Curitiba, Brazil: Vincent Lefebvre works as a UN Volunteer specialist in the International Centre of Specialists Volunteers (ICSV) Curitiba, the capital of Paraná State in Brazil. The United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV) set up the ICSV centre to house a working group of international UNV specialists and national volunteers whose task is to promote development, human and civil rights in Brazil.

UN Volunteer supports health care in Brazil  As a UNV Project Analyst, Vincent brings his expertise to staff of national non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to implement health care schemes. These should aim to provide adequate health care to people in remote and sparsely populated areas in the fifth-largest country of the world, covering almost half of the South American continent.

At the request of the Pará State Secretariat of Health, the Belgian UN Volunteer went on mission to the small isolated communities along the Amazon. Together with doctors working with local NGOs, he was on board "Carlos Chagas", a Brasilian Navy Hospital Ship. For the first time, a UN Volunteer was exploring the remote area along the Amazon River where Quilombos tribes live in conditions of extreme poverty.

"I spent 30 days on board the Navy's Hospital Ship cruising through the Amazon region and offering medical and dental care to the poor between Manaus and Bélem", says UNV Vincent Lefebvre. "Crowds of people were waiting when the ship arrived at the jetties, where some volunteers had the greatest difficulty organizing the queues of patients", comments the UN Volunteer.

More than one million people live in precarious conditions in the underdeveloped Pará State region along the Amazon. Vincent explains: "The infrastructure for health care is almost nonexistent in the area. The health system usually consists of a basic dispensary where few doctors gives emergency treatments or distribute medicines." By comparison, people showed great enthusiasm for the service provided by the Navy's medical crew.

The Navy undertakes trips along the Amazon, in Mato Grosso and Para states, seven months a year. UNV Vincent Lefebvre noticed that efficient skills in health care were missing among medical crews in the communities he visited. As a result, health education and prevention were unknown. In fact, the Navy provided people with medical treatment but the poorest urban sanitation and hygiene undermined their action. Vincent also observed that people knew little about their overall basic rights.

The UNV estimated that over 10,000 people had received treatment from the Navy's medical crew and that NGOs, as partners, had done a great job on board. "Volunteer doctors and ophthalmologists working with Vision 2000 examined 35 per cent of all patients," says the UNV who suggested continuing and fostering such an efficient partnership and cooperation. He also recommended that medical teams on board the Hospital Ship should give training on health sanitation and preventative medicine to doctors and nurses working in the communities.

Back at ICSV in Curitiba, where NGOs have their headquarters, Vincent designed a training module that should help reinforce the action of local organizations to help improve sanitation facilities and health infrastructure in areas where they do not yet exist.