Summary

Program goals

In places where health services are scarce, as is the case in the Carabayllo district in Lima, SES has implemented botiquines, or kits, to provide primary health care. The kits dispense drugs at low cost, provide medical and psychological care, and focus on the “right to health”, disease prevention, self-medication, family planning, and more. For a community to be selected for one of the kits, it must fulfill the following requirements: the community has poor access to basic health services; the community is committed to the creation and management kit; the community provides an environment for managing the kit; and the community health worker determines who will be responsible for administering the medicine cabinet.

Key program components

The team operates 16 botiquines (small rural health posts) that serve patients who would otherwise have no access to primary care. Each of these botiquines is overseen by a local community member who has been trained as a health promoter to manage supplies of medicine and coordinate medical and psychological care with SES.

The kits contain basic drugs and are run by a community health worker who is trained by SES in management and administration. Health workers meet once a month with SES for evaluation of their management. In addition to the medicine cabinet, the kits come with a shelf, some furniture and equipment. The communities that receive the kit are entrusted with the management of income generated by drug sales to use for restocking the medicine cabinet. Drugs are purchased from a partnering nongovernmental organization, Parroquia Cristo Luz del Mundo, Christ Light of the World Parish. The activities of health workers include: monitoring the kit; coordinating medical and psychological care with SES; acting as liaison support for doctor visits; conducting and promoting health events; providing training workshops for stakeholders on care and management of kits; broadcasting the different health policies; and emphasizing the importance of not self-medicating. Health promoters develop various activities for their communities and in Carabayllo a network of promoters are grouped into specific topics like TB, Vaso de Leche (a child nutrition program initiated by the Peruvian government), nutritional monitoring, and mental health among others.

In 1996, SES began its work in Peru as a cooperating agency to the state. SES's has applied multidisciplinary tactics in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MOH), NGOs, with a special focus on community workers and the public, to treat multidrug-resistant cases of TB (MDR TB), malaria, and HIV in different regions of Peru. SES has forged a strong partnership with the Peruvian MOH, and together, they have achieved the highest cure rate for MDR-TB in the world. It is currently Peru’s largest non-governmental healthcare organization, serving an estimated 700,000 people, many of whom have fled from poverty and political violence in Peru’s countryside.