First news from Kikori

2nd day at Kikori Hospital. Well, I’m practically unpacked and settled in my room (see above). It has a beautiful view of the Kikori River (second picture). Dr.Valerie met me with handful of patients, nurses, nursing students awaiting my arrival. They gave me a small bouquet of flowers and the girls sang a song about welcome to the family. It was very nice.

Ward round today was about 5 hours long. Majority of the patients has TB. In fact a couple of them have TB meningitis. In London, they would have been the biggest concern and all but here, it’s almost the norm. The ward looks like a 3rd world hospital. Very dirty looking, making most NHS hospital look 5 star. We even have a marasmus-kwashiokor patient (malnourished kid). All the stuff we learnt in the trop med course, we have here. Amazing. I am glad that I am here. I made the right choice. I know I will be busy which would help in my moments of missing Ingo. Dr.Valerie is very good. She was raised in Kapuna so she speaks some Pidgin and Motu (which is the known language of the area).

It’s going to be very busy. It’s only my 2nd day yet I feel like I’ve already been here forever. I got up at 6am today, started ward round around 7am. Finished ward round at 12:30pm, had lunch, then had TB clinic from 2-5pm. Then went back to wards around 6pm until 8:30pm. Came home cooked, ate. Rechecked on patients at 9:30-10pm to make sure everything is ok. I have also learned to use the ultrasound to try to see what the womb is like and also how the baby and placenta is doing. One of the mothers has a fairly low-lying placenta, and in London, I know they would have done frequent ultrasound and monitor her closely by the specialist. Well, here I’m the specialist. Dr.Valerie has a great ultrasound book so we have been referring to it. I’m quite impressed with Dr.Valerie’s traction making for this little girl who had broken her thigh bone last week. When she is gone in a couple of weeks, I would have to be in charge. It’s quite nice having her and because of her upbringing in PNG, I have learned a lot about their food, culture, people and language.

Dr.Valerie took me to the market --Not as much variety as I anticipated—people just scrunched around their back garden or fish and bring it to the market to shop. They use leaves to weave into a basket and that is their shopping bag. They sell lots of betel nut, crab, coconut. Not much tropical fruit and the fish had been all sold out. Here hygiene is not exactly there so you have to make sure you cook everything. Drinking water is basically rain water. That has been ok. There is one store that sells basics and it is really interesting, I have to take a picture one of these days. Basically all items are behind this wooden counter with metal bars, you speak through an opening and tell them what you want. Apparently, if they had stores like what we have, things would go walking. In Port Moresby, the capital, they have supermarkets but lots of things go walking, so they have security guards and you get your bags searched every time. They are so poor here. They wear clothes with holes, and it looks like they had the same shirt or pants for years. Dr.Valerie had to lecture them how to use these western toilets, as they throw whatever they like in it, which has caused plumbing problems. She went around giving them bits of toilet paper.

The PNG people are lovely. Some of them have the most amazing smiles. The weather is great. I was anticipating the worse—humid heat like Malaysia and summers in Japan. But it’s still rainy season and their ‘winter’, so it rains 3-4X a day and rains in the night. It’s overcast a lot so it’s not too bad. I mean it’s hot but not unbearable. I have been able to sleep ok. I am told the heat will come in the summer which is around Dec time. So hopefully it will be ok until I leave.

Looks like I will be able to do internet at least once a week where I’ll go to the oil company and they let us use their computers and feed us. Now I understand why the oil company people emphasised several times how I would appreciate some different food. With the limited food available, I think I will really enjoy the time I can get away to the oil company for some nice meal and using internet.

Please pray for the following
1. Wisdom in all medical cases but particularly obstetrics and orthopaedic cases
2. My health
3. Favour among staff and patients
4. Wisdom to discern how to help the people here (ie educate on hygiene…etc..)
5. Energy to continue with a good attitude

P.S.: This is a message from Ingo. This has been posted via me as Chie has no access to the blog directly in Kikori. She is e-mailing these posts to me and I put them on the blog. This also means that she is not able to see your comments. Therefore, please e-mail any remarks to Chie directly - I am sure any news will be much appreciated!