The Challenges of Family Healthcare in Apatou, French Guiana   · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

Henri Dumoulin, Global Voices contributor, recalls his stay in Apatou, French Guiana, located in the heart of the Amazon Forest. He explains how, as the physician of Mother and Child Health Protection programme there, he had to rely on the informal colloboration with the Suriname health system and navigate the multilingual setting of the community :
I shall be in the “Apoema tapu gezondheid zentrum” on November 28, 29 to work again with the same team, to vaccinate all people living on both sides of the borders in this franco–Surinamese archipelago. It appears that nobody was aware of our coming [..] So the account of injections was lesser than expected (109 in one day). Amalia [the coordinator]  send a radio call on Thursday morning and people came progressively [..] A little worried about the reaction of my boss regarding my way of managing our local health problems and crossing borders ..