Skin cancer surgery

4:58 pm
I'm sitting in the waiting room of Dr Bachetta, the plastic surgeon who removed my skin cancer last Friday. It was a straightforward procedure, a quick local anathestic and 15 minutes on the table and that was it. He will have biopsy results I think.

To see a consultant here is pretty easy. You just need to ring up their private clinic and make an appointment. All you need to have is the money to afford treatment - $150 to have skin cancer removed. Our school has health insurance which covers general hospital visits, but your average Paraguayan struggles to find the money to see the doctor or buy medicines. Often people are begging in the streets because their child needs medicine. The daughter of members of our church recently had twins 12 weeks premature, they needed a week of neonatal intensive care - at £2000 a day! Hearing figures like that make you thankful for the National Health Service we have in Northern Ireland.

6:14 pm
Dr said it is healing well, but no pathology report yet, back on Wed.

Stephen, Eileen, Elijah and Hannah

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