Adventures in Papua- Day 6- The Clinic

The dedications were now over, but in order to make our hike extra worth the while, the Jones had scheduled in an extra day in the village as a “free day” for some and a “clinic day.” One of the visitors on the trip is a doctor in New York (Dr. Teubl), Charis just got certified as a nurse, and Molly has only one more year of nursing school, so, needless to say, the Papuans were in good hands!

After another early morning wake up and breakfast (we decided to skip the cold showers this morning, probably not the better choice, but such is life!), everyone was informed of the schedule/different options for the day. Some members of the group (Leah, Mom, Dad, Birage, and the Teubl girls) decided to hike a few miles to the next village over for a visit. Others (Nate, Charity, Will and Stephen) headed to the local coffee plantation for a tour of the coffee process. Finally, those left behind (Dr. Teubl, Charis, Molly, Ben, Caleb, Sally, Ethan, Linda, and I… please note that the combined medical experience of Ben, Sally, Ethan and I MIGHT equal 5 visits to the hospital, and my handing out band-aids and cleaning up puke as a teacher, of course!) headed over to a building at the edge of the village that serves as the clinic. It consisted of one big waiting room, two examining rooms and a bathroom.

Some interesting circumstances were brought about since we would only be providing a one-day clinic. First of all, obviously the doctor would not be able to see everyone. As the day went on, we had to begin to truly screen people for urgency and severity. Thankfully, the most serious cases came in the morning, so we were able to get them all in. Another factor to consider was that there would be no follow up with patients, so we had to hand them their medication with clear directions (written and verbal) and hope for the best. Additionally, because there was no pharmacy just down the road, we were limited to the medications that had been brought up the mountain by the Joneses and Teubls. Despite these potential challenges, we had a very successful and uplifting day at the clinic!

When the day started, it took a little while to figure out how things were going to run. Obviously, with only one doctor, there was a little bit of a bottleneck there. We also found a brief hold-up near the beginning of the day in temperature taking. Unbeknown to us, the only thermometer Linda had been able to get hold of was a glass, mercury, 4-minute thermometer. Ben was assigned to take temperatures, and as excellent as he was at it, he couldn’t speed up the process at all, so we had to wait occasionally for the thermometer to finish!

At one point pretty early on, Ben was asked to run back to the house to get some more water and handed the thermometer over to Steph. She started taking the temperature of a kid and then was called over to translate a chief complaint for Caleb. Steph asked Ethan to take over the temperature-taking with the only instructions of “2 minutes left and don’t break the thermometer.” Well, apparently more directions were needed because Ethan was not informed that there were two parts to the thermometer, and when he went to shake it down, he held onto the wrong part and…. Needless to say, proper actions were NOT taken for the broken MERCURY thermometer, but, what to do in a remote jungle area? Also needless to say, Ethan was banned from any more temperature taking after we finally discovered the village doctor had his own thermometer (exactly the same as the one we had, except didn’t have Fahrenheit… Molly made a conversion chart to solve that problem!) and we finally talked him in to handing it over, promising not to break it!

Worms is a very common problem in this village (due to unclean water and other unsanitary conditions), so every patient that came to the clinic (and even those who just came as escorts!) was given a dose of worm medicine. This was nice, because then, even those patients whom we couldn’t necessarily help otherwise (those who complained of aches and pains when they worked hard in the field) could at least get worm medicine and feel like we were being treated. Every patient was also prayed for by name before he or she left the clinic, which is the best medicine we could provide.

Another common ailment we saw in patients was a fungal skin disease, which is also caused by unsanitary conditions. We saw over 50 kids and adults come in with this disorder and were able to give them a pill that would hopefully clear that up. Thankfully, after diagnosing the first patient and figuring out the medicinal dosage needed, the rest of these patients were able to be treated without having to see the doctor, which helped speed along the process. Since the clinic has no running or clean water and we forgot to bring Dixie cups, we were initially planning to simply send a pill home with each patient and leave it up to them to take it. With quick thinking and Sally and my teacher training though, we brainstormed and decided that paper, origami cups would hold enough water to chug down a pill. So, we quickly set to work making an ample supply of those, grabbed a big bottle of drinking water from the nearest home, and started dishing out pills left and right!

Other quick thinking by Steph happened when we got a 5-year-old boy in with a 107ᵒF fever. Since the doctor was in with a different patient at the time, Molly said the boy needed to be sponged off to try and keep his temperature down. As mentioned, there was no running water at the clinic, so this did not happen as easily as expected. Looking around for a sponge, cloth, or anything, Steph spotted a bandana on both Molly and Sally’s heads, grabbed those off and had Caleb run out into the downpour that had started only a few minutes before. We alternated the two bandanas between sponging off the boy and re-wetting them (Caleb gladly handed over his “standing in the rain” role to Ethan, who excelled in this position) until Dr. T was ready for him. It truly was the epitome of jungle medicine at its finest. (It was concluded that he probably had either typhoid or malaria and was given medicine for both. Unfortunately, his fever or possibly dehydration was causing him to throw up, so he wasn’t able to keep any down while he was at the clinic, but the mom was given clear instructions on what to do.)

Through the course of the day, more than 200 patients were attended to (about 160 were seen by the doctor!) with ailments varying from arthritis to possible tuberculosis to hypertension to UTIs to open wounds and malaria. Some of the less severe cases we saw/heard about were patients who came in with complaints including “my fingers are numb when I put them in cold water,” “my children have shortness of breath when they climb a hill” (remember, the village is located on a MOUNTAIN!), and “I fell seven years ago and my back hurts”. Thankfully, we had over enough people working (the people who had gone to the other village and coffee tour came back to work in the clinic in the afternoon), so we were able to give attention to each and every Papuan who walked through the door!

After Ethan redeemed himself by standing in the rain, we allowed him back in the clinic to entertain the patients. :)

After some Papuan men worked quickly to mount some lights in the clinic, we extended our hours until almost 8 pm before we had to call it quits. We packed everything up and headed ‘home’ for dinner and a time of reflection on the past few days. After the group dispersed to their respective houses for the evening, we again had a dance party with the women at our house. Molly took on the role of showing them some of the American classics, but quickly realized this was more challenging than expected because Papuans don’t have shopping carts, lawnmowers, robots or sprinklers. J It was also on this night that Molly and Leah held one of our house babies using a sling. With Leah, it was a time of freaking out and going “Look, NO HANDS” while the baby was grasping on for dear life. For Molly, it was a time of freaking out because the baby’s hand had gotten caught beneath the sling on Molly’s neck and as it was trying to break it free was ever so softly tickling her neck in her most ticklish spot. Thankfully, no babies were harmed in this interaction! When all the laughing and dancing was done, we climbed in bed for our final night under mosquito nets and drifted off to sleep to get rested up for the big hike down the mountain.