The ‘Camilianos na Foz do Amazonaz’ – ‘Camillians at the Mouth of the Amazon’ – Project is an example of health care created without fixed institutions and agencies which has the intention of involving communities in taking responsibility for their health through prevention, mutual care and basic enablement. We are referring here to the hospital ship created by Raùl Matte, a medical doctor and Camillian priest who for over forty years, without stopping, has taken medical treatment and spiritual care to the indigenous communities of the vast delta of the Amazon River. On each trip, Fr. Raùl visits more than a thousand patients who are wounded at times in their bodies, at times in their souls.
Thanks to this project, the incidence of some diseases, such as leprosy, has diminished notably; others – anaemia, helminthiasis, malaria are malnutrition – have been kept at bay with suitable information and training in hygiene.
This project is in line with the strategic choices of the Order: ‘Care for the poor finds one of its most effective expressions in community health programmes. The promotion of community health programmes does not imply a negative judgement on activities involving assistance and health care that are engaged in by institutions. What needs to be done is to match health-care institutions with sound health programmes whose aim is the prevention of illness; education for communities in relation to care and treatment; the fight against common and endemic diseases; the constructive use of resources for everyone, and, in particular, a formation process for every citizen so that he or she shoulders his or her own responsibilities’ (fifty-fifth General Chapter, 2011).
