The moon shone through the bedroom window as I woke from a restless sleep. It had just risen and hung about halve full above the treetops of the night jungle, its pale light rendering a ghostly atmosphere to everything around me. It was strangely quiet, the stillness broken only by the occasional cry of a night animal. Even the crickets had become silent. I realised that the diesel generator wasn’t running anymore and my heart fell – she must have died.
It all began, when Matt entered the MAF shed in Rumginae on Saturday morning. I had had some problems with the Internet connection and was checking some settings, when my fellow MAF pilot appeared wearing his MAF uniform. “Got a medevac?” I asked. He nodded and I learned that there was a woman in Bosset with birth related problems and bleeding, who needed to be taken to the hospital as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the village people of Bosset hadn’t bothered cutting the grass of their airstrip making it necessary for the woman to be brought to Aiambak by boat – 22km in a straight line, but more than double that on the ever winding Fly river. An interne doctor helped Matt ready the plane, my own offer having been turned down because I was officially on holidays. There was nothing I could do other than go home.
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| On the way to the hospital (by Matt Painter) |
I heard the plane return in the early afternoon and guessed the woman was brought to the operation theatre immediately. A few hours later the emergency alarm was sounded, summoning extra hospital staff, as their help is needed in an urgent situation. I had the strange feeling that my non-involvement during the day would soon change.
And true enough, just as we had put our kids to bed and were about to start doing the dishes, our walky-talky squeaked and a voice inquired if we would be willing to donate blood. My wife immediately went up to the hospital and I followed after checking the conditions for donating blood for pilots. Being on holiday, I was good to go ahead.
There was a light drizzle as I walked from our house to the laboratory. It was dark already and the almost autumn-like atmosphere felt strange, like a dream. I could see the building holding the operation theatre ablaze with lights. There, doctors had diagnosed a placenta praevia and had performed a Caesarean to get the child out, but afterwards the woman’s bleeding didn’t stop. Now they had sent for an additional doctor from the hospital in Kiunga, a 45-minute drive away, in order to be able to make a full anaesthetisation and remove the uterus, which would hopefully stop the bleeding. Hymns drifted from the theatre and I realised that apart from the doctor’s skill and the voluntary donations of blood, God’s help was needed desperately.
There were a few people standing in front of the laboratory as I approached. But they turned out to be onlookers only, so I picked my way through them and entered the room. To my right my wife was already lying on a bed with a filthy looking mattress and cobweb covered legs. The assistant sitting at her side just told her – did I notice some pride in his voice – that he hadn’t taken blood for nearly eight years. “Very encouraging!” I thought and glanced at the rest of the room. Everything was covered with ancient laboratory apparatus, testing tubes, boxes, and other odds and ends. Strewn across a desk to my left were pieces of gauze, alcohol trenched swaps, and their torn wrappers. Here a nurse took blood samples to determine the haemoglobin level. A rat was scurrying over a beam in the roof.
I asked if they still needed my blood and after some discussion they figure it wouldn’t hurt. So after some back and forth, a bold nurse offered to take my blood sample, and, made nervous by my white skin, wasn’t able get a single drop out at the first try. No fumbling about with the needle still stuck under my skin yielded anything, so she had a second go and to my relief was more successful.
As I was waiting my turn, we talked about the difficulty of finding people willing to donate blood. Most villagers do not understand that the body will eventually replace the blood taken, but think they would loose part of their life in the process. Accordingly, they usually want some sort of monetary compensation or they refuse to donate blood. The staff do not like the explaining, the pleading, and the being turned down, whilst knowing that a person might be dying if they do not find enough donors quickly. For that reason, it is mainly hospital personnel who volunteer to give blood.
Then the person in front of me was done and I was told to lie down. As the blood slowly flowed into the bag I was anew struck by the technological difference between the West and this bush hospital. Everything was just functional; the laboratory assistant held and moved the bag with blood himself, the amount taken was determined with a spring balance. No fancy machine humming, buzzing, and beeping while doing all the above more efficiently and economically – and less relationally.
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| Letting blood a la PNG |
The blood was soon taken and my wife and I walked back to our house to finish the dishes. We wouldn’t have to bother about light, because the diesel generator would be running all night, providing power for the operation theatre and whatever medical equipment was needed after the operation. Later that night, as I made myself ready for bed I realised that being a pilot is really only a part of my ministry – and that the other part is done while we’re not flying.
Now, as I lay awake in bed in the middle of the night, unable to get back to sleep, I felt immensely sad. What had gone wrong? For with the generator silent I felt sure things had not gone according to plan. Why did the effort and involvement of so many individuals not do the trick? I know that our work is in vain, but for the help of God. However, why did God not intervene? Tossing from side to side for a long time I couldn’t come up with an answer and over the pondering finally fell asleep again.
I did not feel like a man of faith when I entered the little hospital church the next morning. The interne doctor was already sitting on a bench, waiting for the Sunday service to start. We shook hands and “clicked”, I reluctant to hear the “news”, he a little too indifferent for my liking. He smiled and said: “They are both well.” It took a while to register what he meant, but when it did I felt ashamed. Well, God did honour our team effort after all. But I’m sure glad He does not depend on my faith and trust.
