Nuevo Tiempo Peru’s audios—broadcast four times a week—bring encouragement to patients, doctors, and nurses.
A Seventh-day Adventist broadcasting network has created audio messages to encourage patients, doctors, nurses and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru. Speakers throughout the Ate Vitarte Emergency Hospital on the east side of Lima, Peru’s capital, share the messages four times each week.
“If you love God, who is the main source of love, you will have an inexhaustible source of love to give to others,” one of the messages announces.
Ate Vitarte was designated a “Specialized Care Hospital [Level] II” by the Directorate of Integrated Health Networks (DIRIS) technical committee. The move followed an emergency decree by Peru’s government mandating specialized care for COVID-19 victims. As of June 30, Peru reported 285,000 cases of the novel coronavirus, with 159,000 of these reported in the Lima area. So far, 9,677 Peruvians have died from the disease.
Those numbers spurred the Peruvian government to issue a mental health guide calling for spiritual support of COVID-19 patients. Junelly Paz, an Adventist psychologist, is a member of the committee tasked with such mental health measures, contacted Nuevo Tiempo Peru and requested audios with messages of hope and motivation to encourage hospitalized patients.
Hospital officials assert, “A great deal of research shows that feelings of hope and peace directly influence physical health. And not only for patients but [also] for health personnel who work on the front line.” Such research led the hospital to seek the recordings.
“The situation here is very sad. However, there are several people who, in this fight, get to know the love of God through these audios. It is a project that was born in prayer and turned out better than I thought,” Paz said.
The audios are broadcast four times a week, with themes like “True love,” “Faith in the midst of crisis,” “The power of friendship,” “Prayer,” and “Health.” Nuevo Tiempo Peru is preparing new programs through its Bible School, exclusively for patients of Ate Vitarte Hospital.
This article was originally published on the South American Division’s Spanish site