(CNN Spanish) -
Dr. Álvaro Ramallo Zamora, a urologist who lives in the city of Tarija, near the Bolivian border with Argentina, says that "tears fell" when one of his patients arrived at his office with two chickens as payment for a prostate surgery that he had to do.
"I was overwhelmed by emotion. I really fell into tears to see this nobility. It has been years since I saw something like that ... it transported me to the past and made me remember my father," Ramallo Zamora told CNN en Español .
His father, who was a urologist in the 1960s, died 11 years ago.
"Very excited and happy, last night this grandfather did not have money to undergo prostate surgery, to which I replied that we are going to operate on him for the Dr. José Ramallo Guillen Foundation, such my amazement when he takes out 2 chickens as a gift to pay me back. I was very moved and moved and from heaven, dear daddy, I know that you are happy to know that I have followed in your footsteps in the well-being of these beautiful humble and simple Chapaca people ... ", he wrote on Facebook.
The doctor took a photo to immortalize the moment.
In it he appears with one of the animals in his arms and the patient Pedro Quintana, with a hat on and the other animal in his hand.
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Quintna arrived last Friday at Dr. Ramallo's office.
"I felt bad," the man told CNN, adding that he could not urinate well.
"I live alone there in Santa Lucia," said Quintana, 80, pointing to his back, trying to locate the pain.
Quintana, who says he has no children, lives in the region, about three hours from Tájira where he was operated on, in southern Bolivia.
When the doctor told him he had to have surgery, "he was sad," said Dr. Ramallo.
So he left and came back with two chickens.
Quintana says he did it because he is fond of the doctor and wanted to thank him.
Ramallo says that he happily accepted the chickens because he understands the gratitude of the rural people, and he also remembered that in the past it was like that.
Two chickens as payment
According to Ramallo, when his patient arrived, they put a probe on him and informed him that they had to operate on him.
"He gets a little sad, logically because of the surgery, which has a cost," Ramallo told CNN.
"I told him that we were going to do it for free through the foundation. Then he changes his face and leaves my office and comes back on time with two chickens: a rooster and a hen."
The animals already have names —Clotilde and Ramón — and they are going to stay with the doctor, he said.
"My wife was excited, she took a photo and they are from the foundation now," he said.
"We don't cook them, we won't do anything. We are very happy."
Quintana is in recovery, the doctor told CNN, and he will probably be discharged this weekend and will return home, news he received with a grateful smile.
