A little Peruvian girl with a damaged heart gets help

UPDATE: EsSalud, the national health care network of Peru, has reportedly made a last-minute decision to assume the remaining cost for 5-year-old Valeria Vásquez‘s heart transplant.

According to an email newsletter sent out by her school, Jean Piaget, Valeria is being flown tonight with her father, Diego, aboard a charter ambulance plane on a 10-hour journey to the university hospital in Minnesota.

Donations are no less important, however, since her treatment is expected to last at least six months to a year, and her family needs all the financial help it can get to cover travel and living expenses during her care. The first procedure will be to hook her up to an artificial heart to help stabilize her other organs. Then she must wait for a compatible donor heart.

By Rick Vecchio
Peruvian Times Editor

Only a heart transplant can save five-year-old Valeria Vásquez. Her parents, Diego and Jesicca, need to raise more than US$550,000 for her to receive the operation in the United States.

Their story aired last weekend on the Sunday night TV news magazine Panorama.

Peruvians responded with an outpouring of donations: More than US$200,000 in Peru and nearly US$24,000 in the United States.

But anticipated transplant-related expenses are expected to total US$775,000 — the sum Diego and Jesicca must raise before they can travel with Valeria to the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital.

Full disclosure: I have known Valeria since she was toddler. She has been my little girl’s best friend since they were both two years old. She is a smart, vivacious, graceful, funny little girl.

It was last November on a Friday that Valeria first showed signs of illness. She developed a high fever and had trouble breathing; Her body ached and she was nauseous — all symptoms easily chalked up to a common flu. But by Sunday, her parents, both physicians, knew something much more serious had afflicted their daughter. They checked her into the hospital.

The initial diagnosis was a virus, probably long dormant, in her heart. For days she remained in pediatric intensive care, and pulled through. She was able to attend graduation at her pre-school in December, and go on a few play dates with her friends. But her condition did not improve. It got worse.

Then came the devastating news: The virus had caused permanent damage to her heart, a condition known as dilated cardiomyopathy, in which the heart becomes weakened and enlarged and cannot pump blood efficiently.

Diego and Jesicca are desperately hoping to raise the money before Valeria’s decreased heart function damages her liver,  lungs and other body systems.

If you want to help them, you can make your donation to:

In Peru:
Banco Interbank (In the name of Valeria’s uncle, Bruno Vásquez de Bracamonte)
En soles: 288-3038206265 (cuenta interbancaria 003-288-013038206265-86)
En dólares: 288-3038206299 (cuenta interbancaria 003-288-013038206299-85)

Or online, with a credit card, through the the Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) :
http://cota.donorpages.com/PatientOnlineDonation/COTAforValeriaV/

 

El Comercio gets huge cache of Wikileaked cables about Peru

Peru’s leading daily newspaper, El Comercio, announced in its Sunday edition that it has received more than 4,000 U.S. State Department diplomatic cables from Wikileaks.

The newspaper revealed two of the cables on Sunday.   The first covers a conversation in 2006 just after the presidential elections, when APRA Congressman and co-secretary general Jorge del Castillo requested the help of the U.S. Embassy to convince PPC candidate Lourdes Flores to accept her defeat against Alan Garcia (a difference of a little under 70,000 votes) and join forces with APRA to defeat the nationalist candidate, Ollanta Humala, in the second election round, in exchange for a working relationship or co-participation in the Garcia administration.

The second cable, dated March 2008, reports on the work by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela to help Ollanta Humala and other radical groups to organize an anti-summit in Lima for May that year, at the same time as the Latin America Caribbean and European Union Summit, EU-LAC, to which 60 heads of State and Government arrived. Thousands gathered for the anti-summit but in the end the only head of state present was Evo Morales of Bolivia.  President Chavez was in Lima for the EU-LAC summit but did not attend the anti-summit.

In a full-page article, El Comercio Editor Rossana Echeandía told the intriguing story of the initial phone call she received on Jan. 22 from an anonymous intermediary, asking if she would mind being contacted by a foreign journalist to discuss an important matter. Read more…

A change of air, new perspectives

By Eleanor Griffis
Peruvian Times Publisher——–

Susana Villaran will be sworn in as the new mayor of Lima on January 1, on the promises of transparency and inclusion.  The thunder of her win was stolen by the drawn-out counting of observed votes, but in the end the exit polls prevailed.   As she offered in her slogan, hope did indeed conquer fear, but only just.  She won by a hair’s breadth, not the wider margin she held in late September, when the polls showed up to a 10 point lead over her closest contender, Lourdes Flores.  Read more…

Van der Sloot: Peruvian justice, public passion and the media’s responsibility

By Rick Vecchio
Peruvian Times Editor

The absence of one word left a gaping hole in our story yesterday about Joran Van der Sloot’s interrogation by Peruvian police — and we weren’t alone.

The word was “allegedly,” a somewhat technical, cumbersome term.

Who really ever utters “allegedly” in everyday conversation?  That is why so many editors deplore its use in news stories. Perhaps that could explain why it was absent from much of the mainstream media’s breaking coverage of the Van der Sloot case.

But unlike other abused and misused words in the journalistic lexicon, like “amid” and “mishap,” the judicious application of “allegedly” in news stories is vital. Read more…

Reader’s comment on Peru lawmaker’s reaction to Arizona’s illegal immigrant law

Dear Peruvian Times Readers,

It has come to our attention that the “Comment” form on our Web site is not working properly, and we are working to fix the problem as soon as possible. In the meantime, we received the following message from one of you concerning our story posted April 29, titled “Peru’s foreign relations commission to analyze controversial Arizona law, “ offering a heart-felt, alternative perspective.

The views expressed below by Mr. Rodriguez in no way reflect the editorial position of the Peruvian Times. Read more…

Where else besides Machu Picchu should Peru enlist the help of stars like Susan Sarandon?

By Rick Vecchio

Susan Sarandon added a big dose of Hollywood sparkle last week to the reopening ceremony of Peru’s crown jewel, Machu Picchu. Peru would be well served to apply such Tinsel Town treatment  to its other historic attractions.

Against the iconic backdrop of Inca Pachacuti’s 15th century citadel, the Academy Award winning actress posed with Andean children in traditional dress. The Huayna Picchu peek loomed in the distance. The photo-op was a unmitigated success, announcing to the world that Peru’s most popular tourist attraction was again open for business, two months after torrential rains and landslides wiped out train access to the mountaintop shrine.

A battalion of reporters and paparazzi managed to stay mostly on message, asking Sarandon repeatedly what she thought of Machu Picchu — as opposed to probing personal questions about her recent separation from Tim Robbins.

“I had no idea there were so many journalists at Machu Picchu,” joked Sarandon, who was flanked by a U.S. Embassy bodyguard and Peruvian Tourism Minister Martín Pérez. “Oh, (this is) just for me? I though it was like this all the time. So I guess that means maybe I’ll have to see Machu Picchu when you all go and then I’ll have a better idea of what it’s like.”

Inviting Sarandon was a brilliant how-to in “top-down promotion” for Peru’s tourism industry, wrote newspaper columnist Juan Paredes Castro in Sunday’s El Comercio. He posed the question: “How many Susan Sarandons does Peru need?” Read more…

Peruvian Times complaint to Agencia Andina

UPDATE to original post: Agencia Andina has added links on its posts back to our original stories. Peruvian Times appreciates the corrective action.

Lima, March 31, 2010

Laura Vásquez
English Website Editor
Andina Agencia Peruana de Noticias

Dear Ms. Vásquez,

Once again Agencia Andina’s English Website has blatantly plagiarized a Peruvian Times article for use on its English language news page. Read more…

Why to root against The Milk of Sorrow’s Oscar nomination

By Rick Vecchio

It was with bemused surprise that I saw Claudia Llosa’s “The Milk of Sorrow” nominated the other day in the category of Best Foreign Language Film for the 82nd Academy Awards. But the slow groan of disbelief didn’t really start rumbling in the back of my throat until the  Oscar nod was hailed by Peru’s government as a huge advance for the country’s image in the world.

“This nomination will bring Peruvian destinations into fashion and will be key to boosting tourism in Peru,” declared Peru’s minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism, Martin Pérez.

A remarkable statement, if you believe, as I do, that “The Milk of Sorrow” does for Peru and Peruvians what John Boorman’s “Deliverance” did for the Appalachians and the mountain people of Georgia. Read more…

Fujimori, Arana, massacres, impunity and immunity

By Paul Goulder ~

In April ex-President Fujimori was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison and the long fight for justice by relatives of those killed at Cantuta and Barrios Altos, and who had absolutely no connection with terrorism, have seen some belated and grim reward. It has been called “un hito jurídico mundial[i]” (an international legal milestone). Read more…

OPINION: State of emergency against Indigenous Amazon tribes

Editorial column from Monday’s Diario La Primera

~ By Roger Rumrill* ~

Dr. Alan Garcia Perez’s government has decreed, as of Saturday, May 9, a state of emergency in almost the entire Amazon territory, out there where the indigenous organizations are protesting with strikes, marches and even blockades of rivers and highways against a package of “perro del hortelano” laws that open the door for the transnationalization of Peru’s Amazonia. Read more…

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