A belated update from our second day in Timor Leste...

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It’s 7am and I have an appointment with Dr Dan. Better not be late.

Winding our way through Dili’s streets and alleys as he drives to the clinic, I got to hear a snapshot of his busy life. Stressful, but rewarding. Hearing that things don’t always go according to plan, but that makes it even more important to have a continual process of self-evaluation and even second-guessing: what could I have done better? Where did I go wrong? What can be done to prevent this? The “What ifs” are a crucial part of careful assessment.

I was lucky enough to be able to sit through a session where Dr Dan was training the lay midwife named Lydia. As mentioned in the last post, Bairo Pite Clinic (BPC) runs a program where midwives who are elected from their villages receive about one month’s training in the maternity wards of BPC. Well-experienced and equipped with knowledge, they then return to their village and provide life-saving maternal care. Amazing!

Just before we left Sydney, the incredible group of women from Days for Girls donated another bag full of women’s personal hygiene kits to distribute in Timor. It was really great to witness Sue passing over the kits to the team members at BPC, hopefully for distribution in the rural communities serviced by the mobile remote clinics.

Trips such as these bring to one’s attention gross inequalities in health care and access to services. What other words besides gross or obscene describe the disparity which leaves women dying of simple birth complications in remote and developing areas, whilst others have access to the best chance of safe and sanitary delivery simply for being born into the “right” country?

It pains me to think that some of these women are my age or even younger.

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It wasn’t all gloom, but a mixture of quiet confronting moments that shake your world view, and exciting and inspirational moments – seeing compassion and resilience under difficult circumstances, and catching glimpses into the world real, adult medicine.

My favourite part was being able to go on the ward round, and having the opportunity to learn from the senior doctors and medical students on elective. I loved the environment of efficiency and collaboration: Dr Dan translating in Tetum on behalf of the patient; the students jotting down review notes and analysing X-ray images; all the doctors together discussing their interpretation of the problem, and the most appropriate management plan to undertake.

I was the noob again. Tagging along like an ignorant but excited puppy, asking all the basic questions…(bringing back PNG memories of asking questions like “what’s hypertension?”). I was just really grateful that the students Sally, Louisa, Scott, James and Tom were so patient in answering and explaining along the way. In other words, translating what was medically going on into “plain English”. It was a fascinating process, and it brings into perspective the fact that I really don’t know anything. It stimulates that urgency to learn and catch up, fill that void of medical knowledge. It’s true when people say that the more you understand, the more you can do to help – and this is especially true for medics.

***

We left the hospital at midday and headed back to where we were staying. Sue and mum spent the afternoon in meetings while I tried (with variable success) to catch up on my uni assignment.

Our evening flight path was Dili to Darwin, then Darwin to Sydney in the middle of the night. The first flight was delayed about 45 minutes, and after waiting for a few hours in Darwin, our second flight was delayed too. We got on the plane around 1am, flew through the sunrise and landed in Sydney around 7:30am, just in time for 9am Monday lecture!

General feedback from mum, Sue and I was that it was a very rewarding and re-affirming trip. We were very moved by the energy and passion of the Bairo Pite team, who came from all walks of life and yet were bonded together by the common desire to help. What they have achieved and are continually working towards is truly incredible. Mum and Sue also found the people that they arranged to meet with to discuss action plans where very receptive, which was very encouraging.

Personally, the trip was a re-affirmation of the utter disparity of health care services available for the needy. It’s really just in your face, and you can’t walk away without having that imprinted into you. Where else in the world do you wander through a “middle-class suburb” where the houses are made of corrugated iron, the windows absent of glass, and the drains simply a trench dug into the side of the dirt road? Being young, naïve and idealistic, it’s hard to digest the idea that poverty is just so freaking widespread.

The question is, then, what are we going to do about it?

Carrie