Old Planes and Luxury Hotels and even a whine! Excuse me a moment whilst I swim up to the wet bar and get another Pina Colada.

Transcription

1 Old Planes and Luxury Hotels and even a whine! Excuse me a moment whilst I swim up to the wet bar and get another Pina Colada. There now I am suitably refreshed I can get on with this entry. I have been in Fiji attending a Strengthening Specialised Clinical Services in the Pacific conference. It was at the Sheraton Spa Resort at Denarau Island bit posh for me but I was not paying! I was very nervous when I left Tonga as the plane taking us on the first leg to Suva in Fiji was an 1960 Convair 580 that normally flies between Islands here this instead was a two hour trip over blue water. Now I am not a nervous flier I have averaged a flight every two weeks for the last three years and frankly, the magic has long worn off, but it was interesting to note that they had to make three boarding calls before anyone decided to risk it and get on. Once on, it didn t help they couldn t start the port engine and we had to get off again whilst they fixed it. Reboard about an hour later, now definitely uneasy and this time she fired up and I have to admit, took us there very comfortably.

2 The return flight was via a 737 jet so was a lot less nerve-wracking. Anyhow, ended up in the Hilton resort: bit flash as I said but enjoyed it non the less the conference was Monday through Wednesday but my return flight was not until Saturday so got some R&R in. The shower had me had never seen anything like this before: It was a little bizarre on the Tuesday night I went to a restaurant at the Marina Village and they were shooting a local movie there actually in the restaurant whilst we ate. There were people fighting, glamour girls in bikinis pouting and guys being thrown through

3 windows around us whilst we sat and munched as if nothing was happening! The conference, from my point of view was a good thing because it helped further the acceptance of the training course a team of us is working on. Was funny as one of the participants was a professor of Pathology who works at my old hospital in Australia he remembered me as when I was doing my medical science degree my physiology professor set me a really tough research assignment topic went to see this professor and his first comment was what had I done to my professor to get an assignment from hell then he admitted he even could not answer that without a lot of research he did help though and it must have stuck because he remembered me so it s a small world one of his posts is as visiting professor of Pathology at a Pacific Islands Medical School where I am also a visiting lecturer in medical equipment so funny how things work out hey? Shortly after I got back I went to the outer islands here Vava u and Haipai to spend some time at the hospitals, Whilst our main referral hospital in the capital is the best facility in the Pacific we have a dirty little secret our outer island facilities are very underfunded and sad When you walk into one of these facilities you really do know you are in the developing world. My project for next year is to get the hospital at Vava u up to referral standard with its own theatre and oxygen plant. Then I have an old generator that the compressors and controls are stuffed on but the towers are in surprisingly good order a cyclone damaged it several years back. I will program up a PLC and get it operational and send it to Haipai a twenty nine bed facility on our

4 middle island group so they can do procedures there too funnily enough they have an asthma cell there very high in regard to the other islands and I want to investigate why. The trip there was interesting went up in an 18 seat metroliner which I think must be the Jaguar e-type of prop driven planes very sleek with an enormous sexy nose out the front. Then between Vava u and Haipai went in a seven seat plane it s a six seat but as there is no copilot they squeeze a passenger in there and tell him or her to keep their hands and feet off the controls! The Hospital at Haipai is a twenty nine bed unit and neglected the mortuary has not been working for three years and I have tried to get funding for a new one for three years with little progress instead they have to bury patients the next day not nice as overseas family can t get back in time. I will keep trying. Also dismantled their old x ray machine an old Toshiba that had completely rusted out and collapsed was very dangerous. Have got them a new portable and have a new unit ready for them once the room is radiation proof has never been in its life and it backs onto beds!

5 The trip back to home was exciting airplane buffs will understand me when I say that the route features one of the very few DC-3 s still flying commercially it is owned by a private collector in New Zealand who also owns the local airline and who had it restored in 2010 and uses it on this route its actually bloody quiet and smooth. The new CT scanner facility is coming along have finally gotten over the hurdles regarding the finance and hope to turn the first sod in the next couple of weeks it s a big thing here normally we have had to medivac severe trauma cases to New Zealand at a cost of about $60,000 per flight this was a donation from the Government of China and will save us a lot of our $11 million a year health budget. We could

6 never have afforded it ourselves. Currently it s sitting in a container awaiting the building I hope to have it open in October. Sadly, working in the developing or emerging world, death is so much more your companion. On Saturday we lost a little lad that I think could have been saved its academic now but he was in one of the outer islands and critically ill he was set for a flight to here where we could have treated him I got a call on Saturday morning from the plane company asking for payment up front for the flight I m a clinical engineer not finance but seem to be the go to person in the Ministry. I asked them to get him over and we could sort it out but they insisted and by the time we had gotten hold of someone in finance that had the authority to authorize payment the little guy had slipped too far and died shortly after we got him here. This is the sad reality of emerging country medicine the bureaucrats have no latitude or sometimes concern or to put it plainly NO BLOODY COMMON SENSE! It is the saddest part of the job the other part being that as this is a simple very conservative Christian part of the world mistakes that cost lives are attributed to Gods will and no one is called to account. Anyhow that was my whine. On a more positive topic, we have a visiting orthopaedic team here we have been without an Image intensifier for eighteen months and just go our new one last Friday afternoon they started procedures Monday so was timed perfectly. Good to see the procedures going well:

7 The team at the welcoming breakfast they also ran a training course for our nurses The guy in the middle with the Lei is Lord Tangi a peer here, he s a laparoscopic specialist surgeon and was former Health Minister and deputy PM. Very nice guy. In case you are wondering the nurse unit managers wear white, the RN s wear pink and trainee nurses wear blue.

8 Oh one last picture this post sigh! I came across this whilst cleaning a theatre table yes that s chewing gum!!!!!!!