So You Want To Be A Doctor?
Foreword by Biggy:
This piece shows an insight uncommon today as the Western world turned right toward a greedier conservatism.
But some, like Francesca, stand out from most of us; here in her words is an insight for us.
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I hadn't been home from Sierra Leone all that long and was convinced it would take a long time for me to get my head around the utter devastation of a countries people that Ebola had inflicted on those poor souls - when I got the call to see if I could go to Nepal.
I didn't even know that there had been an earthquake, but as my accreditation was still current, I could quickly be sent off to assist.
So I did.
In crises, things tend to happen in a blur.
The aftershocks smashing the already ruined buildings, the cracks in the ground widening more the terror in the eyes of the shell shocked people.
I wasn't ready for any of this, a metropolitan girl, and a crisis shattering the lives of millions.
Ebola in the African continent, earthquakes here in Nepal, the result many many dead and lives changed forever.
I saw things I wish I never had, and personal experiences, like being robbed at gunpoint shrink into insignificance when folded into the big picture.
I find myself now looking back, in a jumbled manner remembering events then and comments from now, in discussions with people online and seeing just how relevant things were.
I was robbed, wow.
How does that measure up to Fainias story and how it was repeated only weeks ago online in a conversation:
"Then she told us all a story of her time in Sierra Leone, and one particular instance.
Ebola had been raging for a long while when she got there and they gathered all the new volunteers together for a pep talk.
A Brit who had been there 6 months spoke to them and argued that they really needed to remain aloof and prioritise.
He told them what to expect {the unexpected} and one particular case of a few months earlier that played heavily on him.
The world hadn not come to the aid of the sufferers to much extent then; and things weren’t in place to deal with things effectively.
There was a young woman, Fainia, in her late 20s early 30s who lived with her extended family in a mud brick hut .
Her father became ill, and started to bleed from every orifice, sweat profusely and on The Monday died.
The hut was covered in blood and body fluids, the transfer methods of Ebola.
In no time her mother and brother contracted Ebola and died on the following Monday within an hour of each other.
Two days later, her husband died.
In utter panic, she took her 3 children to the nearest hospital, at that stage, not set up to deal with Ebola.
They placed her and the 3 kids in a big holding area with dozens of others, with continuous deaths occurring through the day.
No one came near them, with aid or even water.
Outside the Hospital a crowd of 100s had gathered, stirred on by the local witch doctor.
He told the people there was no such thing as Ebola and they were just taking poor people in there to kill them.
Ultimately, they rioted; over running the hospital and dragging the dead and dying, along with blood and fluid soaked mattresses out into the streets
Fainia took her sick kids and went with the mob out into the streets as she felt she had been abandoned and had no other hope.
Once there all she could do was place her 3 dying kids on a mattress in the street.
Troops came and chased of the rioters, who fled into the bush and surrounding areas taking their sick and dead with them.
The custom is to stay with the family corpse for 24 hours, washing them, cutting and braiding their hair, nails etc.
Meanwhile Fainia sat alone and unsupported on the street and slowly the crying stopped- over a matter of hours, her children were dead
To their knowledge, Fainia somehow survived it all."
So how did my personal experience stack up?
Not very well compared to Fainias .
It was stinking hot, the hours were epic and all done whilst clad in a heavy bulky unwieldy Hazmat suit.
And it was during these long hours that I wondered just what I had got myself into.
I had two families back in Australia, one who had basically funded my excursion, the other, in Western Australia who seemed to stay awake all night to relay my messages and concerns on to those who mattered - as he was the only one I was able to maintain any basic contact with, through emails .
Talk about committed Labor Lefties, these 2 families take the cake.
They put in just as much as I did, in effort and support.
I did hear on the grapevine though that one Aussie politician had made his way to Sierra Leone, but stayed safe in the city, consulted with some and had a wonderful Media opportunity
But I had my own ways of dealing with the horrors and madness constantly going on.
When the panic started to set in, I would find myself humming the John Williamson song:
"There's a new world order!", the leaders all shout
And everyone's frantic they're gonna miss out
And the red, white and blues are still marching about
Oh we must have a flag of our own.
'Cause this is Australia and that's where we're from
We're not Yankee side-kicks or second class Poms
And tell the Frogs what they can do with their bomb
Oh we must have a flag of our own!"
But the battle raged on; the Cuban Medical team, who are so well prepared to have an immediate response to humanitarian issues anywhere, anytime fighting the good fight and ignored by the international community kept on doing what they do best, treating the victims.
Another later online conversation:
03/06/2015 at 6:26 am
"Also FYI.
Sierra Leone will be free of the Ebola virus in a “matter of weeks”, but stopping the deadly disease in Guinea will take more time, the United Nations’ Ebola chief said.
Speaking in New York on Monday, Dr David Nabarro said the overall outbreak of the virus in West Africa would end “in the foreseeable future”.
“The general trend lines are that increasingly, new cases are known contacts of people who’ve already got the disease, and also when cases are detected they’re brought under treatment quickly,” Nabarro told The Associated Press news agency.
“And that means that we believe that it’s only a matter of weeks before the outbreak is ended in Sierra Leone,” he said, “and that’s because of strong participation of communities, a very coordinated national response, and strong leadership from Ernest (Bai) Koroma, the president.”
Guinea, on the other hand, has chains of transmission which health workers don’t fully understand and communities that aren’t cooperating with health workers trying to eradicate Ebola because they view them as trying to disrupt their traditional way of life, especially in dealing with illness and death, Nabarro added.
Touching the body of an Ebola victim can transmit the disease, but traditional burials in Guinea are hands-on – and determine whether the spirit of the dead person will move into others in the community in a happy way or will be disturbed and take it out on people, Nabarro said.
Since the outbreak was officially acknowledged over a year ago approximately 11,000 people have died across West Africa with Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia bearing the brunt of the epidemic."
And inevitably the conversation turns to money.
Both Sierra Leone and Nepal have a similarity ... poverty
And how do we spend our money?
10/06/2015 at 8:28 am
A bit of gossip.
Tanya Plibersek is trying to get an Inquiry happening into the Abbott Government's {Australia} wasteful spending on the Ebola crisis.
There have been approaches to XXXX to see whether she would testify.
Now given she described the Australian effort as "the Abbott Hilton" , where $100 million was spent to treat 200, I’m not too sure anything coming from her dainty lips would be in any way flattering to the LNP.
10/06/2015 at 9:12 am
So the initial $20 million cost of the LNP supporting Medical Corps blew out to $100 million and treating only 200 patients all requires an R.C.
Another interesting conversation popped up online, with the LNP Government scaring the population into submission with TERROR, death cults, punishing those aiding terror etc. . . .
Just where did I fit?
I worked under the auspices of another Government.
Was I aiding terror?
Mssssss,
With their policy on the fly I don’t think I would feel too safe volunteering anywhere anymore under this lot.
I am not a dual citizen, but what happens if I get caught up in a region where some idiot LNP Minister decides should be deemed a terrorist hot spot and those there branded participants in a terrorist organisation , and get dealt with accordingly .
I know in Sierra Leone there were AL Qaeda supporters, and for all I know I may have treated one.
There are other conflicts I would have to seriously consider avoiding if I knew of the presence of such 'deemed enemies'; and that is one of the problems.
I was somewhat aware of the Rohingya plight, but until my recent trip, I had no clue that Buddhists, whom I always viewed as peace-loving Dalai Lama types had often engaged in savage, brutal and devastating attacks on the Rohingya, and vice versa
I [suggest] (quests?) you would need to undertake extensive briefings before even considering going too far from home shores, while we have such a villainous regime in power here at home”
And now it was Nepal and the whole world was watching the horrors unfold live on the TV.
The Americans, as is their usual practice, had their military rescue crews arrive to coincide with peak news time in the USA.
With 24/7 paparazzi covering their every, {choreographed} move, they pulled their usual stunt; stayed in a safe area for a pre-determined number of days and with the same fanfare as on their arrival, departed leaving the rest of the international community to do the bulk of the work .
As usual, the Cubans were there from the start, committed to the long haul; and then the cavalry arrived.
The Chinese rescue effort, numbering thousands, swarmed into the region and start to methodically organise relief and logistics to regions only accessible by 2 days on horse back
They came with much needed expertise in the region, the equipment and the skill set to make a difference.
We on the other hand operated out of small, still standing buildings with one eye on the door.
The building standards, if there are any were a great concern.
On the slightest tremor it was a dash for open spaces, not sure whether to sit or stand, and wondering if at times they were ever going to stop.
The gaping cracks in the ground seemed to expand and contract, and you were never sure which.
Would it swallow me? Should I run? .Then an eerie silence would come, and we were back to it.
We saw the fractures, the ruptures, the cuts and abrasions, and the corpses in a continuous file.
One a venture out to view the carnage of the surrounding town it struck me that these old temples, now rubble, were really ancient.
Damn, they were ancient when Captain Cook was in nappies so for an Aussie it was difficult to get you head around the history of these shrines.
The locals scrambled through the rubble searching for living souls, corpses or religious relics.
They stopped in groups and prayed or chanted to their Buddha/Allah/God /Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever other fantasy they followed.
I just wondered why this “caring” entity they prayed to made them suffer the catastrophe in the first place.
And this pattern continued on until it was time for me to leave for the safety of Australia, leaving behind people who will suffer for generations from the outcome and with the memories of those who didn’t survive, and were still missing.
And from the safety of my laptop home in Australia I posted this message to a friend online some days later:
Good morning xxxxxxx, my body clock is still on Nepalese time .
Latest information on the Nepalese situation for any who may be interested.
The UN said on Tuesday that approximately 2.8 million Nepali people affected by the April 25 earthquake and aftershocks were in need of humanitarian assistance, of those affected, 864,000 people, who live in remote, mountainous areas, need urgent assistance, as they lost their homes and livelihoods.
According to the UN, over 500,000 houses were destroyed and 269,000 others were damaged by the quakes, and hundreds of thousands of people were still staying in makeshift shelters
The UN has estimated that 1.4 million people require food assistance due to high damage to agriculture-based livelihoods.
As the planting season starts this month, an estimated 2,360,000 people need agricultural inputs, including rice and vegetable seeds. The situation is aggravated by the large loss of livestock,”
“Some 5.6 million people require healthcare support, including disease surveillance access to medical facilities,”
Logistics were also important as the fast-approaching monsoon season was about to further complicate aid delivery to remote, hard-to-reach areas which were among the most affected, the UN said.
And Now Ebola is resurfacing in Sierra Leone, with new cases reported this week.Will it ever end?
Francesca
