Erika Pérez Albrecht, a former student of Santa Teresa School in La Paz, Bolivia, has received the Boliviana de Oro award for her excellent service as a paediatric cardiologist treating children from low income backgrounds.
Dr. Erika Pérez Albrecht works at the Niño de La Paz hospital in Bolivia. She specialises in paediatric cardiology and is currently one of the few experts in the country in this branch of medicine. During her training she learned that “80% of children with heart problems can be operated on, and when they are, the problem is solved,” she told Unitel Bolivia.
To specialise she had to go to Colombia and Chile. When she returned to her country she formed a team at the Hospital del Niño, where they say that she has completely changed the hospital’s approach and improved quality of life for the children's families. Every year, 5,000 children are born in Bolivia with heart problems and many of these children die with the wrong diagnosis. Most of the country's population also lacks the resources to be able to undergo surgery, which is why the doctor felt she had to do something.
She runs a programme in which one to three children with heart problems are operated on free of charge every week. So far, she has performed almost 1,000 surgeries. She calls the children whose lives she saves“warriors” because of their determination to carry on.
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