It certainly has been a hectic month with Screening and commencing surgery on Thursday the 29th June.
The Screening Days were held in the Assembly of God Church in Community 4 in Tema, Ghana (West Africa). During these days thousands of patients lined up hoping to receive a free surgery provided on the ship. My role during those days was to schedule the patients for their operations. It was a long and tiring two days but we managed to schedule 289 maxillary facial, general and plastic surgical operations as well as 343 eye operations to begin with.
There are 31 weeks allocated for this outreach in Ghana, so we have many more slots for surgery available. There is a team of health professionals that go the port gate each day to see patients who have heard about the Anastasis and what we do. These potential patients are then given appointment cards to see a doctor and have further tests to prepare them for surgery if it is something we can help with.
It has been an interesting couple of months in the Operating Rooms with quite a stable crew for at least 6 weeks. We have worked well as a team and managed to get quite a few operations done successfully.
Doctor Steve Arrowsmith and Doctor Heather McGehean from the United States were with us for 3 weeks doing Vesico Vaginal Fistula Surgery. The crew worked tirelessly to fix these ladies who have been leaking urine for many years due to obstructed labour. It is always a joy to see them in the ward when they have been healed from such a problem that causes them to be isolated from their community because they smell. Not only have these women had to deal with the emotional loss of a child but their husbands sometimes leave them because of their condition. At the end of their stay on the ship we have a dress ceremony symbolizing their new life without having a fistula. Unfortunately we could not cure all the women with this problem due to the extent of their injury, but we tried.
Rob Harley came to visit the Anastasis from the 12th -15th July. It was great to have another Kiwi on board who I could share this experience with. During his time here he followed me around in the Operating Rooms but also outside of the work environment. He also managed to get various interviews with other crew and follow up on some patients that we had operated on during his stay here in Ghana.
It has been a challenging time here as I adjust to living on board and settling into the role of Operating Room Supervisor. It is a privilege to be able to serve alongside such dedicated crew who want to help those who need hope and healing from such crippling conditions.
We left NZ heading for Moscow the beginning of July where we were met by our Russian friends Julia and Jury. To our surprise Julia had learnt English just for our trip and boy she was good. One day in Moscow and then to Kostroma. We were pleased to leave Moscow it was soo expensive. Kostroma was very very hot so we spent a lot of the days waiting for the evenings. We are not used to the heat being from Invercargill!! We spent a lot of time in Kostroma talking and meeting with people who will be key in the establishment of a home for street children. We were very pleased with how it went and are gearing up for a September start if a building can be secured in that time. We met children that we had sent funds for at Christmas time to buy fruit and toys they were a real thrill. Whilst in Russia our two sons Ben and Daniel got badly bitten by mossys that would have been alright but they festered and got infected and by the time we arrived in Romania I was quite worried. We went to two doctors over a week period and carted around a load of medication! {fortunately they haven’t scarred.} Its always great to see everyone in the home we helped establish in Romania. Rob Harley met us and we did some filming we really appreciated his input. We began to work on some proposals and ideas to set up a base in some hospitals. We are limited to the number of children we can take in the home in Targu Mures so our thinking is if we can’t take the children in to care lets go to where the children are!! So we are working on a proposal for lifting the care received in the hospitals where the abandoned children live and providing workers to do the paper work so that some solutions can be sought for these precious children. Part of that is sending 2 NZ specialist workers to Romania and airfares are now booked for their departure in September- Yahoo!! We visited some other kiwis living in Timisoara and gathered more information to help us in the future. We had been staying in a Romanian apartment in Timisoara but the heat became too much for us and we checked in to an airconditioned hotel. Whimps I know!! Here in NZ our new staff proved extremely busy and our first month with our Trade Me store a great success!! We had an Article printed in the Womans Day organised by the Vodafone Foundation and articles in 2 other mags plus The Southland Times and 2 radio interviews. Its all helpful in getting the message out there and raising the support we so desparately need to get to these kids. We are Thankful to everyone that has responded.
The first part of this month was very quiet, but I was grateful because it gave me chance to catch up on a few things. I’ve been investigating how to get a portable ramp built for riders to use at events off RDA grounds. This will hopefully see sport riders in more competitions and possibly even competing in able bodied events. Now that groups have seen how the riders respond to winning a ribbon, they are interested in doing more ribbon days, hooray!
I’ve also been working on a presentation that can be used to bring RDA to schools, disability support groups and others who are interested in hearing about the benefits of riding therapy. I’ve been invited to the Dyspraxia support group and the SPCA Outreach meeting and am looking forward to both. Breakfast TV have also been interested, especially in riding for people with Dyspraxia, and they filmed me working with a client yesterday.
I am so pleased that the interest in riding therapy is growing and that more people are in awe, as I am, of what horses can do for those who need them. Otherwise I’ve been out in groups, working with either riders, volunteers or both and I am pleased to say that I am starting to see more of a therapy focus in the programs. Coaches are asking for more information on the process that needs to be followed, volunteers are thirsty for information on what more they can do for their riders and even the parents are expressing that they want more from the rides.
