Derek's Journal Latest Updates from the field.
March 23-31st 2010 Published: Mar 23 March 23 Heavy rain causing flooding in the Pariaman area where we were going to .Today’s clinic cancelled, and a rest day decided upon.
March 24 Writing letter to President of Indonesia to explain helicopter situation and get some assistance from the top, hopefully.
March 25 & 26 Village clinics in Pariaman – seeing between 50-70 people/ day. Osteo arthritis, gastro oesophageal reflux, malaria, Ross river fever, Tb, respiratory infection, postural hypotension, headache, hypermetropia, and cataract are some of the common cases. Read More.....
Monday 22nd Published: Mar 22 After a 2 hour drive, fifty people are seen at the village of Pariaman . There are lots of malaria type illnesses around, maybe Dengue or Ross River Fever or Chikungunya but treatment is not too dissimilar as neither Dengue, Chikungunya or Ross River actually have curative treatments. A big need in these poor villages is for spectacles as they are too poor to afford the transport to the town of Pariaman or city of Padang to buy a pair of cheap glasses, about 30,000 rupiah. I miss having someone like Tony Denney on the team as it is time consuming to find the best pair of glasses for those people in need. We, in developed nations, take good vision or corrected vision as an important basic condition. But not in Indonesia where good vision may make the difference to someone stepping on a snake, touching a poisonous spider or centipede or even seeing mosquitoes...
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Sunday 21st Published: Mar 21 Sunday 21st comes around and Melioni and I are driven by Pak Yobana to a village very badly damaged by the Padang quaketo see 60 people over the course of the day.
The southern hemisphere winter seems very remote. Every day is at least 35 degrees celsius from early morning till sunset and the high humidity varies only slightly with the frequency of the heavy rain. Melioni and I are ready each morning between 7:30 am and 9 am depending on the distance away from Padang of our destination village for the day. Some days we are not home till 7 pm with Melioni usually asleep the entire way home. Despite this tough regime for a toddler she is coping happily, maybe even thriving !!
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Saturday 20th Published: Mar 20 I caught the plane from tello back to Padang to resume the waiting for my day in court which is predicted to be no less than 8 weeks in court at one day per week
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Friday 19th Published: Mar 19 Given (our Troppodoc translator) is presently working at the Tello Island resort, which is an excellent opening for him with maybe another offer from the new surf resort Latitude, which is further away to the south.
I was busy with moving 2 more pedicab loads of medicine and equipment from the Catholic Mission to the Ben Hong house and also seeing 20 patients at a clinic and doing the occasional house call. The first of Margareth's play equipment stands is almost complete in Ujang Batu area on the other side of Tello. I hear this initiative of Margareths is much appreciated by the community and is much used by the children as an excellent place for them to learn to cooperate with each other and develop physical skills and feelings of self worth. Read More.....
Thursday 18th Published: Mar 18 Early morning drive to Teluk dalam wharf to find no small ferry going to Tello today BUT there is a very large vehicle and people ferry leaving from the main wharf in 1/2 an hour. That barely gave me enough time to drive to Stella Maris hospital and find the official driver Solly to drive me to the main wharf. This new service of a ferry about 70 metres long capable of taking several vehicles is running regularly on Thursday from teluk Dalam to Tello and returns on Friday.It is an inexpensive and safer option than the small boats, not that I have heard of a single sinking or fatality on the smaller ferry boats .
The big ferry takes about an hour less than the small boats and soon Melioni and I were on Pulau Tello and after a short refreshment stop at Fitri's restaurant (Rumah Makan) we were at the Beng Hong house and soon on the way to a house call to a 24 year old lady suffering severe post natal depression after her first baby. Read More.....
Tuesday 16th Published: Mar 16 Day of relaxing at home as this is the start of a huge 3 day Koran reading competition.. It has taken 2 days to erect the colourful red stage set up in the closed off street. There were invited guests from the local government, the Bupati, and many many maybe hundreds of children watching the competition. Read More.....
Monday 15th Published: Mar 15 Pariaman is a coastal town north of Padang. I visited the rest home with accounts varying on the numbers of residents from 110-400 . There is no clinic at the facility but there is a nurse running the home during the day.
Apparently a doctor visits from Pariaman and sees patients once a week. Lots of hypertension and osteoarthritis among the residents. I see at least 60 people here and once again, hours of being driven there and back by Pak Yobana or one of his colleagues.
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Journal to 15th March 2010 .. back in Indonesia Published: Mar 15 Arrived back from Haiti on Feb 27th and spent a day in Singapore airport waiting for the next flight to Medan at 7 pm. It was such a pleasure to get back to Margareth and Melion who has reached the stage of recognizing me even after 10 days absence and when she ran to greet me calling "Papa" I felt wonderfully happy.
Sunday in Medan mostly sleeping, paying the jet lag price as well as the 'trying to see as many movies as I could stay awake for on the airplane' price . The small times I was awake it was good to catch up with Melioni and and finding out the pleasures and dramas of Margareth trying to organize the playground construction in the first village of Ujung Batu on the west side of Tello. Read More.....
Sunday 14th March Published: Mar 14 Another busy up country clinic, with a 5 hour drive from Padang to get there and a wide range of complaints to be seen.
Melioni takes it all in her stride keeping up with me, with no fuss. I am seeing a cross section of conditions from ankle pains to cataracts, influenza, 'rheumatic' hands, painful wrists, keloid, bp checks, fungal skin infections, leg cramps, gord, backaches, headaches, sciatica, coughs, kidney pains, blurred vision, hand cramps, cuts, fevers, infected insect bites, infected wounds, frozen shoulders, poor appetites, laryngitis, pharyngitis, itchy skin, axillary cysts, chest pain and breathlessness to name a few! Also hypertension of the order 223/130 with others not quite so dramatic nor dangerous. Read More.....
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