With a cup of tea in hand, I’m sitting on our balcony in Balimo. It’s 6am and our house is quiet, although I’d be surprised if many people are actually asleep given the great rooster choir that is currently in full swing. But I have a cup of tea, there will soon be fresh damper for breakfast and it’s about time I sat down to try and tap something out about what I’m up to in PNG and what we’re all doing out here.
Before I came to PNG there were variations on two questions I was asked commonly; ‘what are you most excited about?’ and ‘what are you most nervous about?’. Both were good and valid questions but not the easiest to answer. Armed with the general plan, but a year’s worth of practice at holding plans loosely, and watching the pandemic rapidly change plans, I didn’t feel I knew enough about what I would actually be doing (verses what we planned to be doing) to latch on to any particular point of excitement or nerves (it’s not that I wasn’t excited and didn’t have a few nerves but they were fairly non specific).
On a big picture level I knew what I’d be doing, I would be back in PNG working in a primary health care setting, but the details of what that would actually look like on the level of my daily life were fairly blurry. And honestly things have not turned out anything like what I expected.
So, 2 months into life around here and what does that life look like?
First off, life around here isn’t on our ship. Our usual model of outreach is from the ship but our ship is still in Port Moresby on dry dock. My little team of 7 have been out in Western Province working on land since the beginning of June, undertaking patrols with the local health system.
Handy map of PNG for reference of where Western Province is located.
Working on land means that we live in the villages/communities we are working in (when we are doing outreach from the ship we travel back and forth from the ship each day). Patrol is what the PNG health system calls going from place to place within the catchment to deliver health services, rather than static clinics. The combination of this means that we set up home for the night in a lot of different places (often a church, community building, health centre or health workers home), cook and eat what we can buy at the local markets, and our days are much more in line with the local rhythm of life.
Home for the night: A church with a very good breeze. The yellow mozzie net is where I call home.
The evening market in Lake Murray. The daily market shopping list is protein of some description (we eat a lot of fish, but deer or pig when we can get it), greens, rice, and whatever vegetables are around.
Out on patrol we have a lot more time to get to know the local health care workers we are working with as we live and work together for two weeks. They have taught us many things including how to prep and cook all the weird things we come home from market with.
While this has its challenges it also gives us a closer perspective on realities of life for the villages we serve and the factors that influence local health service delivery.
How does your village get water? Does the water tank work? Why was it vandalised? Is there food readily available locally or do families go out for a few weeks to find food for a longer stretch of time? When we give advice to come and follow up or seek more attention if something doesn’t get better at the nearest health centre is that even possible for you (or would that be a multi day paddle by canoe)?
What medical supplies does each place have? Where do we go to get more? Adjusting when plans change, supplies don’t arrive on planes and what’s our next best option?
To access one of the catchments we were going on patrol in required a 3 hour trek through a swamp. We did it twice (once in and once out) but this is the route that the local healthcare workers take regularly to get in medical supplies.
There are so many factors around clinic, and then there is clinic itself.
C L I N I C
Our patrols focus is maternal and child health; routine childhood immunisations, antenatal checks, and family planning.
Routine childhood immunisations are our main game at the moment and where I mostly hang out. PNG’s immunisation coverage is low (the percentage of children who have received all the immunisations that are due for their age) which means that there often isn’t enough people immunised to stop the transmission of a disease if it comes through the community. And PNG does see outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases, which can kill or disable infants and children.
To achieve a high percentage for immunisation coverage immunisations need to be given regularly in an area (if you aren’t familiar with childhood vaccinations schedules there are vaccines usually due at birth, 1,2 and 3 months, and then again at 6, 9, and 12 months during the first year of life) and for many reasons in remote PNG this often doesn’t happen. We see a large variety of children in clinic regarding where they’re up to with their vaccinations; sometimes it’s babies for one or two shots, sometimes a four year old who needs a bunch to try and catch up, a village worth of kids receiving just one type of vaccination because there has been no stock in the area, and in some places children haven’t been vaccinated since we were there in 2019.
It can be busy and loud and while there is always effort, in the middle of a global pandemic there is also a lot of effort to try and make sure that no epidemics of things such as measles, polio, and whooping cough develop while health efforts may be primarily focussed elsewhere.
P A R T 2: Where are we at today?
It’s been about a week since we left Balimo as this post has taken me a little longer to finish up than I expected. I started writing this on a balcony and will finish it sitting underneath a house next to a mosquito coil, trying to fend off mozzies who seem to have a prefencene for biting your forehead over any other more available space. In the last week we’ve transited through and restocked in Daru, and bounced along the southern coast of PNG in a boat to get to the home base of our next patrol.
Things are busy and different but things are good. We’re just beginning our eighth week of being out here in Western Province (not bad for a two week trip but-pack-for-6-weeks-just-incase briefing) and have a new location and new healthcare team to get to know. I am constantly learning new things (clinical skills, language, how to prep a deer leg for dinner) and have been incredibly blessed by the team I am working with.
Life is full and life is good. It’s good to be back in PNG.
PS: If you’d like to find out ways you can support me in what I do here with YWAM Medical Ships please check out my ‘start here‘ page. It gives a bigger picture overview of what I’m involved in, and if you scroll down there is a section that details a few ways you could practically support me in this work. If you have any questions please reach out – I’d love to have a chat!