TOGETHER WE PROGRESS IN PUBLIC HEALTH

Year Published: 1940s

Format: 16mm

Description: This 1940s Spanish film by the Inter-American Cooperative Service of Public Health (SCISP) "Together We Progress in Health" describes the organization and its services through the eyes of a young nurse who works there. The Inter-American Cooperative Service of Public Health was founded in 1942 as a joint venture between the United States and Peru, as part of the U.S. "Good Neighbor Policy" to improve U.S.-Latin America relations. The film opens with a young woman dressed in black placing a bouquet of flowers before a mausoleum vault (0:33). Narration explains that her father, a miner, died of lung disease, along with her young nephew, the same year she finished medical training. Due to this, she decided to become a nurse. She sits down at a desk among other nurses-in-training, all wearing white uniforms (1:06). A Peruvian nursing pin at 1:22. The nurse looks at a thermometer while caring for a child with typhoid fever from contaminated water (1:32); narration explains that she starts thinking about preventative health and "protecting the health and happiness of her compatriots." A group of primarily men in suits gather around a table (2:03) at the Inter-American Cooperative Service of Public Health. Nurses disembark from a SCISP vehicle to go to a public health training course at the Preventative Health Center in Lima, Peru; a plaque at 2:41 acknowledges that it was built in cooperation with the United States. A doctor examines a patient; a nutritionist does a cooking demonstration in front of a class (2:57). Components of the 9-month training course are shown, including blood analysis, maternal hygiene, and anti-tuberculosis vaccination. Some nurses are sent to rural areas to promote potable water; a man leads a horse to collect water from the Ucayali River (3:56). A sanitation engineer builds a latrine (4:33). In Chimbote, doctors examine a lung x-ray from a man with the same disease that killed the nurse’s father; laboratory experts take samples of the factory air he breathed, which was found to contain large amounts of dust (5:36). A health worker examines a woman’s hand (5:48). Sites of Peruvian public health projects in Iquitos, Tarapoto, and Yurimaguas are shown (6:04). Nurses are sent to the United States to study new techniques (6:18); a nurse vaccinates children in a rural area. The nurse demonstrates infant care to mothers (7:09); she explains that an important aspect of care is gaining trust. She accepts a bouquet of flowers from children (7:29). The film ends as the nurse describes how she is slowly achieving her dream of health for all.

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