Medical Evacuation to Cairns, AustraliaI

I am back in Ukarumpa, safe and sound. What an adventure I had this week . On Tuesday, we (another nurse, Karen Wood, a patient, his wife, and I) left the local Aiyura airstrip at around 3:00pm. We took a man that had been having abdominal pain, and we suspected appendicitis. We are not able to do surgery at the clinic, so we had to fly him over to Australia. The plane that we usually use for medical evacuations (med evac) is our King Air, which was recently struck by lightning and the engine is being overhauled. Another mission has very generously offered to help us out with med evacs while our plane is out of commission, so their plane and pilot picked us up at our airstrip here and we set off for Cairns. It was a 3 hour flight,with no trouble, and the patient tolerated the flight fairly well, just had pain and some nausea, which we had medication for. We flew into the overcast and rainy, but warm town of Cairns. It is a lovely town of about 30,000 people. There was only room for 2 extra people to ride in the ambulance with the patient, and seeing as this trip was for me to learn the ropes of a med evac, I went along with the patient's wife in the ambulance,
We walked into the lobby of the hospital, and it was so nice that I was worried my shoes would get dirt on their nice carpet. I had to bite my tongue not to exclaim how clean and nice the hospital was, I think it's the nicest one I've ever seen. I reported off to the nurse there, and then went to catch a cab. I got a ride to Treetops guesthouse, which is also lovely. Karen (the other nurse) and I had a car from the guesthouse, and headed in to town. First on the agenda was a trip to the grocery store, because we had a moderate-sized list of requests from some of the clinic staff for items that you just can't get here in Ukarumpa. I even bought myself 2 packages of feta cheese!!! And of course, picked up a treat for Paul - Cadbury Flake chocolate bars, which I knew he likes. Next we were in serious need of some supper. So we drove around town, and settled on a Chinese restaurant, and the food was superb. We also got to shop around at the night markets for about 20 minutes, before they closed at 11 pm, and I bought a hat! We had to leave early in the morning, so up at 5 am, with only about 4-5 hrs of sleep. But it was worth it! It was so weird to be in a developing country one morning, and by evening, be enjoying some of the sights in Australia! I am thankful for this experience, and for the safety we had during our flights and also that the patient got to Australia on time. We hear that they took out his appendix about 1/2 hr after he got to the hospital! He and his wife will stay in Cairns for a time while he recovers from surgery.

Finding Fun on a Saturday Night

Last weekend a large group of young adults here in Ukarumpa celebratedThom's birthday (one of Paul's fellow surveyors). The evening includedmaking a large number of pizzas, and everyone brought along a couple pizzatoppings and a side dish. Later on, we all enjoyed playing some "firegames". One of them had Thom tying a piece of steel wool to the end of arope, lighting the steel wool of fire, and then swinging it around incircles. The results were impressive, as you can see by the photo. Whosays we don't have anything fun to do here???

The Language Survey Office

Paul is enjoying all he is learning in the survey office. He has a great team of people to work with and learn from. Right now there are eight surveyors; one will be leaving in January and another in February. The next survey is planned for some time in March and will be about 3 or 4 weeks long. Paul is helping to get the research and planning ready for this survey. Researching involves looking to various sources for information: the library, the Internet, periodic journals and translators and other people who have lived or worked near the area. Once all this information is gathered and the purpose of the survey is clear, the team can set out.
The team will stay in a different village almost every night, gathering information through interviews, wordlists, and recorded tests. The main objective of surveys is to determine the vitality of a language and then whether or not a Bible translation project should be started in that language.

The SIL Clinic

The SIL Clinic provides services for the residents of Ukarumpa and also serves as an aid post for Papua New Guineans living in the surrounding area. There are 3 doctors and 9 nurses who work at the clinic. The clinic also has a dental department. Heidi has been working steady at the clinic for almost6 weeks now. She is still on a steep learning curve, but has an excellent mentor who is a great teacher. Heidi has much more responsibility here than she did in Canada and works closely with the doctors. She is doing lab work and X-rays. The main responsibilities of the nurses at the clinic include screening patients for the doctors in the office, seeing their own patients (functioning more like a nurse practitioner would back home), and occasionally helping out in the Outpatient Department (OPD), where Papua NewGuinean patients are seen. The OPD side of the clinic sees an average of 100 patients per day! The clinic also serves some of the surrounding villages by holding Community Health Clinics; the nurses go out to villages and give vaccinations to the babies and children. The clinic is only openduring the day so the nurses and doctors take turns being on-call during the night and on weekends. Heidi has been on-call a few times during theholidays and for several evenings/weekends. Paul has been helping the clinic by volunteering as a driver for the on-call nurses. If the nurse on-call needs to go to the clinic during the night a driver picks her up and waits at the clinic until the appointment is finished. So far he hasn’t been busy.