The Numbers Are Staggering

It is striking how loving and appreciative the people of Papua New Guinea are. As we get near to the MedCAPS [read: medical civilian assistance program sites] people from all around begin to line the streets, some are locals, others travel for miles—usually by foot. They are waving, smiling, even running with the bus. It is the biggest event that has ever happened for these communities in quite some time. They have seen our huge ship in the middle of their harbor, anchored in the deep water with boats constantly transporting us back and forth, and now we are finally here in THEIR community.

There is a palpable excitement that is contagious throughout the community, from the children to the elders. As we get closer to the site (usually a church, school, or public building) a line materializes amongst the crowd that is as much as a few thousand people strong. When I first saw this I looked around the bus: 10 doctors, me (a med student), 5 nurses, 2 dentists, 4 dental assistants, 4 optometrists, 1 chief of operations, 5 security guards. How were we going to see all these people?

I turn to the doctor sitting next to me, “don’t worry, you’ll be able to see more patients than you ever have before” he reassured me.

The reason for this is that these encounters are not exactly like those in the US. We are giving goal-oriented medicine, that is we are 1.) looking for the truly sick individuals in the community so that we can get them to the ship for treatment where we have a full staff, equipment, medications, ancillary services, and surgery rooms, 2.) keeping an eye out for people with infectious diseases like TB and HIV (so that we can refer them to public health at Port Moresby General Hospital where they have free resources and medicines to help treat them), 3.) limited by a formulary that consists of a handful of antibiotics, NSAIDs, OTC’s, some topicals, multivitamins, and a handful of other meds, 4.) not looking to cure chronic disease as we will only be here for a week longer, 5.) trying to educate patients on better health practices, hygiene, and nutrition. With these constraints and goals in mind, encounters for lower back pain can be rather quick, whereas the truly sick patient or surgery consult patient may take a bit longer.

We make our way through the masses of people as they reach out to touch us, give us high-fives, and occasionally a USA chant is heard. I can’t help but smile. We set up and open the doors to the patients to come in. We are pumped up and ready. It turns out he was right, by the end of the day our medicine group saw 864 patients, dentistry saw 112, and optometry about 409 (1385 in all!). I worked as hard as I could, barely eating lunch, and contributed a meager 64 to that number, but wow what an impact!


Bon Voyage,
~Nic