Last few weeks have been crazy.
My second week of work was great, I really enjoyed it. I must submit some ammendments to my first blog. On subsequent viewing, there are enough curtains to go around (in most cubicles), it's just that for some reason nobody is a big fan of using them, and they sit down one side all bunched up. Then almost as soon as I pulled them shut, someone else would open them again. Perhaps due to low staffing the curtains remain open so that one midwife can walk up and down and see at a glance how things are going? Obviously there is no one-on-one midwifery care, and as I discovered, when it's busy in labour ward you could easily find yourself birthing unattended.
On the Friday (2 weeks ago now) there was a hectic half an hour around lunch time. Everyone was busy, and somehow I ended up helping a woman to deliver her baby in one of the cubicles closest to the entrance of the labour ward. This woman delivered her baby in full view of the three ladies quietly in labour on the bench immediately outside her cubicle (this bay's curtains weren't enough). Luckily it was uncomplicated, placenta came out ok, no bleeding afterwards.
Just as I was starting the paperwork, a lady immediately outside the cubicle (2 metres away) on the waiting area bench started yelling "it's coming! It's coming now!!" I had a quick look, no-one else was around, so (she was lying on the lino floor now) I lifted her skirt up and..... oh no theres a baby coming right now. Jumped up, grabbed gloves and gauze, ran back and in one push she had a baby right there on the floor! Magically people materialised, gave me some cord clamps and scissors, drugs to help get the placenta out, a towel for the baby. Then one of the other doctors came, took the baby away to be weighed etc, and I was cleaning up, about to start her paperwork, when all of a sudden....
The woman in the next cubicle along starts yelling "Sister! Sister!!" No-one else around again. I excused myself from our poor mother on the floor, and ran over to the third woman's bed. Sure enough, this baby was about to make its grand entrance. Grabbed gauze and gloves from the next woman along's trolley and in less than a minute, baby number three was born. All 3 in under 20 minutes!!
I think it took me an entire 10 week placement back in Australia as a medical student to get to catch three babies! Ok, maybe a slight exaggeration, but it is very difficult back home. You'd certainly never do it because nobody else was available. And delivieries on the waiting area floor because all 24 labour ward beds are occupied? Well, I've never seen it happen...
Then last week at work, I managed to get along to the special care baby nursery, just to check it out. It's pretty sad actually. They really have the bare bones of equipment - not so much as an incubator. The tiny premature babies are just lying in the same plastic trays that seem ubiquitous throughout the world. One poor little chap was three days old, and born weighing just 850g. He had a hot water bottle, and a nasogastric tube to support him. The doctor said "Oh yes, this one is living for quite a while". There really is nothing to help these babies, and it is truly a case of sink or swim. Another poor little baby had been born with multiple congenital abnormalities - missing limbs etc, and had been abandoned by her mother an hour after birth. Very sad, thinking about what the future could be like for that little baby... The visit was certainly an eye opener.
Lots of other stuff has been going on outside of work too.
2 weekends ago I went scuba diving with 2 good friends Lou and Kristina. It was heaps of fun! We saw all sorts of crazy corals, fish, and two shipwrecks. The scuba diving in PNG is said to be some of the best in the world, and is one of its main sources of tourism. I'm thinking of doing my certification in the next couple of weeks if we actually get a weekend free!
Here is the album, will post some pics here soon.
Oh and on a more serious note, last week for about a week or so, there was an ethnic clash between two highlander tribal groups - the Taris and the Engans. (Enga was the province I was based in in 2006!). Who knows what's really behind the feud, these things can go for generations. But the latest clash is said to have been sparked by a minor incident involving a mobile phone of all things!
Last Monday, Nini and I went to visit a friend who lives near the beach. We stayed all afternoon, and when we were returning home we decided to pick up Dan on his way home from work. Since it was peak hour, Dan asked our driver if he could take us home the 2mile - 6mile route.
As we were approaching a roundabout at 2 mile, Dan said
"I don't like the look of those guys to our right, they're all together, no women, walking fast, looking angry, and most of them have bush knives (machetes)". I looked over at them, and agreed, they did look menacing. Our driver sped up through the roundabout. Nini began loudly demanding that we continue singing "More Humpty Dumpty! More more Humpty Dumpty!". We were all tense as we drove through the roundabout, and then I looked ahead and saw that crowds of people on both sides of the road in front of us were running away. They were running as if there was a tsunami coming up behind them.
I was in the backseat, so I could turn around and get a good look behind us. As we sped away I noticed two things happening simultaneously behind us. Firstly, all the cars that were heading in the opposite direction to us (ie towards the gang) did very swift U-turns and began following our car. And the second thing I noticed was that the gang was now past the roundabout and a fight had begun. Even at a distance it's one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen. It looked like a scene from a zombie movie where a pack of zombies finds a poor human out in the open and sets upon them in a frenzied pile. It was really vicious.
I'm not sure if it was in this exact fight or not, but the next day newspapers were reporting that a man was beheaded in one of these fights over the previous few days.
The next day we were out on the road again, and we saw another big mob. These guys were organised, about 100 of them jogging down the left lane of the road as our car went by, they then jogged 2 or 3 abreast through a roundabout (at 5 mile this time) and onwards towards our local supermarket. These guys were all wearing crowns made of leaves, and carrying their bush knives proudly. A van in front of them appeared to be filming the whole thing. There was also a police van following, and police standing around nearby, although I'm not entirely sure how helpful they were planning to be.
I found out later that they were on their way to a reconciliation / peace talk, but at the time it seemed like the second scary mob of men with knives in two days. I resolved not to leave the house for the rest of the day, even though we were running very low on groceries. By the time I'd worked the next day (and again had no time to go shopping) we had almost eaten through the pantry. We were down to drinking powdered milk, and had no staple foods of any kind left in the house.
In hindsight, I think I freaked out a bit, but at the time I was wondering if this was going to really blow up and we were going to be trapped in our homes. As it turned out they resolved the dispute and all has gone back to normal.
The last new thing we tried out was tagging along with the bushwalking club for a hike in Varirata National Park on Sunday. This hike is the first email they've sent out that said "easy, 5kms, plenty of shade". Brilliant! They usually have hikes billed as "medium-hard, 12+kms, NO SHADE", so this would be a perfect one to start out on, bring Nini along in our AMAZING baby backpack and hopefully all have a good time. The first half, I have to say, was spectacular. A nice gentle incline, scores of butterflies flittering about to keep Miss Biscuit shouting "dere 'e is! OH DERE! Dere 'e issss!!", and when we got to the first lookout the view over Pt Moresby was breathtaking. However, after that things rapidly and literally went downhill. Because of the excellent jungle shade, the ground hadn't dried out after recent rains. The clay soil was a very slippery mudslide, and the slope very steep.
I found myself having an epiphany. This was exactly the same nightmare turf we hiked on when I was a student up in the highlands in 2006, when we were trekking from one clinic to an even more remote clinic. Precisely why I thought that this one would be any different, I can only say I thought because it was in a different part of PNG, and closer to Moresby, and possibly also the words "National Park" implied some degree of maintenence and upkeep of the tracks to me - for all of these reasons I thought that this track would be fine.
At a sharp downhill turn, Dan and I both fell, with Dan falling hard onto his backside and landed on some tree roots. Nini screamed and cried. I was so worried, because her legs had been kicking under the metal part of the frame as Dan had been walking, and I hadn't seen whether or not her legs had been caught underneath when Dan fell. Luckily, they hadn't been, but it was sheer luck that her legs weren't crushed. For the next 45 minutes she was absolutely terrified, and screamed and clawed at Dan every time he slipped (often) or when the descent was very steep and muddy (almost the whole time).
I absolutely hated seeing her like that. I started thinking to myself What on earth are you thinking? It's not enough for you that you endanger your child's life by just bringing her to Papua New Guinea, but then you take her bushwalking? The Kokoda track is just a few kilometres away from here. And just because this track isn't called The Kokoda Track doesn't mean it isn't very similar and just as dangerous! What are you smoking?
I pretty much berated myself the rest of the way. Dan was such a champion, I was so impressed with how well he carried her and kept her safe through all that tricky stuff. For a while there we actually could not walk on the track, and had to hold on to the young trees growing next to it and slide a few steps down the hill, then grab more trees, slide a bit further and so on.
Our shoes may never recover! (Of course we don't have hiking boots! That might actually make things easier...)
Also, on the walk I cut my palm on a sharp stick while falling down, it's only about 3cm long. (I've already posted this on facebook, but for completeness I'll put it on here too!). Tonight Dan and I had the following conversation...
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