Wearing a Chilean Red Cross jacket instead of the traditional white coat, José Ignacio Quidel Gacitúa has just finished seeing seven patients in Traiguén. It’s a cold July morning in the medical post that the rural community of Molco has made available to the Red Cross for its medical assistance operation.

Mexican doctor Víctor Uranga was one of the ICRC specialists leading the recent war surgery seminar run by the Chilean defence headquarters and ministry of defence. The aims of the seminar were to update military doctors going on UN peacekeeping missions and to share with them the experience acquired by ICRC surgeons.

Since the start of 2007, the Chilean Red Cross has been working together with the ICRC to provide basic health-care for vulnerable rural communities in the Araucanía region of southern Chile. Michel Minnig, ICRC regional delegate for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, explains what the work involves.