Bischoff's EnRoute: A Good Friday

Looking at the fridge I contemplated what I should do. It had stopped working this morning and if I did not find a fix reasonably quickly we might have some spoilt food at hand. The tropics are rather unforgiving in that respect, and it looked like it was going to be a sunny and hot day. Luckily it was Good Friday, I had a day off and lots of time at hand. “Well, I suppose I could always swap it with the fridge at the MAF Base in Rumginae.” I thought. It was usually empty and has about the same size as ours.

That’s how I got to the MAF Base, and that’s where Mike found me. We were just heaving the fridge unto the pick-up truck, when Doctor Mike marched in with the news: A patient with a spear wound to the lung needed to be picked up in Kawito and brought up to Kiunga Hospital for treatment. Only problem: the patient needed a chest tube set in order for accumulated fluid to drain from around the lung. Otherwise he would not be fit for air travel.
Now, the doctor who would be able to perform this “procedure” was on an outstation visit to Obo. So, it was decided that Rumginae hospital would pack all the bits and pieces she needed for the operation and I would first fly to Obo to pick her up before proceeding to Kawito. All in all this would add up to a 3 ½ hour round trip excluding the turnaround times on the ground. Luckily, the weather promised to be and stay good.
After dropping the replacement fridge at our house and refuelling the plane I set off for my regular holiday medevac. Landing in Obo Dr Sharon requested to take a sick lady with her, in order to examine her more thoroughly at Rumginae. So, with an extra passenger on board we departed for Kawito. In the cabin Dr Sharon used the 50-minute flight to consult her textbook and read up on the procedure to set a drain.
We landed in Kawito and shortly after that they brought the patient in by boat. Actually, there were two patients, and I was glad I had taken all the seats with me. Instead of two we now had four passengers which made up a full load back to Kiunga and Rumginae.
Having set up an interim theatre under a bush shelter Dr Sharon started with her “surgery”. With the assistance of two nurses from nearby Balimo Health Centre and a crowd of bystanders, she began to disinfect the area of operation and to put out surgical covers. It wasn’t long after she reached for the scalpel and the patient started screaming, that the bystanders drifted away – convinced that the man wasn’t going to make it.
All worked out well, though, and after cleaning up the bloody mess, we loaded the plane and headed off for Kiunga. A lady who felt unwell, a man with a spear wound and a drain, another one with a wound to the belly, a doctor, and their pilot.

It was already late afternoon, when I walked back to our house, tiered but satisfied with the outcome of this unexpected flight. The investment for the charter was well spent as we had been able to pick up three patients and bring home a doctor in one go. I was even more grateful as I heard the next day that the lady patient brought in from Obo had to have emergency surgery because of an oval pregnancy. If we hadn’t picked her up, she would have died that night.