54 CultureShock! Bolivia
Guarachi once responded to an emergency call and carried
an injured man heavier than himself down from a perch near
the top of snow-covered Huayna Potosí. He has climbed the
towering Illimani (outside of La Paz) more than 170 times.
He scaled the Chilean Aconcagua, nearly 7,000 m (about
23,000 ft) with no supplementary oxygen.
Guarachi’s Everest climb was fraught with obstacles: fi rst
fi nancial, then meteorological and even linguistic, since he
does not speak the English language used by climbing teams.
Once at the peak of Everest, he removed his oxygen mask
to place the Bolivian fl ag.World Record Holder
Bernardo Guarachi holds two Everest records: fastest ascent
and descent, and longest time spent on top without
supplementary oxygen.Doctors and Pharmacists
Doctors Zubieta (father and son), specialists in high altitude
medicine, argue that Guarachi’s increased polycythemia,
what some would consider an illness, is benefi cial against
extreme hypoxia, a potentially mortal condition.
The communicative Zubietas represent a type of Bolivian
physician-patient relationship which is unencumbered by
the typical paternalism of the profession that was targeted
by Ivan Illich in his Medical Nemesis. Illich criticised the
authoritarian relationship of doctor over patient, denouncing
that doctors maintained a godlike status by using professional
jargon that masked otherwise understandable concepts. Such
paternalism requires a doctor’s appointment as a prerequisite
for the purchase of a medicine which a more actively involved
patient may already know is needed.
In Bolivia, pharmacists still assume that adults are
discerning enough to handle basic medical information,
and traditionally dispense medicines over the counter that
require prescriptions in countries with more ‘developed’
professions, though this custom is disappearing as regulations
are tightened.