Thirty-four volunteer health professionals participated and offered 2,755 medical consultations, 3,234 dental procedures, and 214 diagnostic tests for malaria and filaria. The Prelature of Labrea, in the Brazilian Amazon, has a hospital ship called “Black Lagoon.”
Every year, when the Purus River is at its highest level of flow and navigation is safer and reaches practically all populations, a medical care campaign is carried out focused on the rural population, made up of riverside and indigenous people. About 40% of the 100,000 inhabitants of the Prelature of Labrea, which has a territorial extension of about half of Spain, live scattered in small towns located on the banks of rivers, the only existing means of communication in the Amazon rainforest.
This population has hardly any health infrastructures and very difficult access to health professionals, therapeutic or medicinal treatments, prevention plans, vaccination, or public health campaigns and policies.
With the Laguna Negra hospital ship, the Prelature of Labrea tries to alleviate these shortcomings in some way. The campaign is managed by the Epiphany Community, which receives proposals from volunteer health professionals for each annual campaign. This year, more than 80 applications were received, and 34 professionals were finally selected.
The 2024 coordination team was composed of Eliana Machado, Rosangela Rodrigues, and Maria Amelia Carrera, consecrated lay women belonging to the Epiphany Community. In addition, some pastoral agents and religious missionaries usually accompany the volunteers to carry out ecclesial actions during the ship’s journey and provide various support and spiritual care for the volunteers themselves.
The boat takes advantage of the weeks when the Purus River and its tributaries are at their highest levels. It is important for safe navigation and to reach rural communities in the Amazon rainforest without difficulties, with less operating expense and less possibility of accidents.
Spain financed the Laguna Negra boat, and the health care campaigns are carried out through Brazilian volunteer professionals who, during these days, get to know and learn about the rural Amazonian reality, the small communities of riverside residents, and indigenous people.
The management of this volunteering and a large part of the operating expenses of each campaign are covered by the active participation of the Epiphany Community, a private association of the faithful born in the Archdiocese of Vitoria (Espirito Santo, Brazil) in 1993.
Its members live in mixed communities, married or single, consecrated to a charism founded on the Incarnation of Christ and a mission centered on service to the most vulnerable: “to bring Christian hope by extending the hand and the heart to the unprotected of society.”
Since then, they have worked with children from disadvantaged families or children and families with HIV. Since 2005, the Epiphany Community has maintained a house with consecrated women in the Prelature of Labrea.
Every year, Epiphany organizes the task of the hospital ship, which visits the four municipalities of the Prelature: Pauini, Tapaua, Canutama and Labrea. To do this, it organizes different teams of professionals according to the time disposition of each professional.
It has the collaboration of the Sister Church Project of the Brazilian Episcopal Conference (CNBB), which, in this case, unites the Prelature of Labrea in Amazonas with the Diocese of Vitoria in Espirito Santo. In addition, the local media of Vitoria and the media of the Epiphany Community itself offer their collaboration for the dissemination of the campaign.
The ship offers the rural population medical and dental care, pharmacy and advice, and referral to the public network of the Unified Health System (SUS) for those detected cases that require more specialized care.
In the 2024 campaign, a total of 80 professionals came to register in the contact form offered on the Epiphany Community website. Thirty-four of them participated directly in Labrea, which carried out 2,755 medical consultations and 3,234 dental procedures, in addition to 214 diagnostic tests for malaria and filaria.
In total, 6,203 actions in the field of health for the riverside and indigenous inhabitants of the rural areas of the four municipalities.
Pauini
There was a professional team of eight volunteers: two dentists, two doctors, a dental student assistant, a nurse, a nursing technician, and a microscopist. They were accompanied by two coordinators of Epiphany and an Augustinian Recollect religious. They carried out 566 medical consultations and 407 dental procedures on 240 different patients. 85 rapid malaria and filaria tests were also carried out.
Labrea
There were eight volunteer health professionals: two dentists, one doctor, two oral health technicians, one nurse, one microscopist, and one veterinarian. A member of the coordination team, an Augustinian Recollect missionary, and an Augustinian Recollect religious accompanied them.
Eight hundred ninety-six medical consultations and 1,465 dental procedures were performed on 365 patients, as well as 129 diagnostic tests for malaria and filaria.
Canutama, Belo Monte y Foz de Tapaua
Two dentists, a doctor, an oral health technician, and an innkeeper (five volunteer professionals) participated, accompanied by two coordinators and Bishop Emeritus Jesus Moraza, an Augustinian Recollect. They carried out 694 medical consultations and 634 dental procedures on 262 patients.
Tapaua
Four volunteer professionals participated (a dentist, a doctor, an oral health technician, and a medical student assistant) accompanied by a support volunteer, three collaborators, two seminarians and an Augustinian Recollect.
They managed to offer 599 medical consultations and 728 dental procedures to 251 different patients.
