We have completed 10 weeks of Surgery so far and have managed to do just over 600 free surgeries for the people of Ghana and other neighbouring countries. It is amazing the distance people will travel to get to the ship – their only glimpse of hope to receive a life changing operation.
This month we have covered a wide range of operations including Eye, Plastic and General Surgery.
On July 24th we held a plastics screening day on the dock beside the ship. 117 Patients turned up for surgery and only a few were turned away. We scheduled 102 patients for a seven week period. Dr Tertius Venter a Plastic Surgeon from South Africa has spent the last four weeks on board the Anastasis doing surgery on a wide range of patients including burn victims requiring contracture release and skin grafting so that they can function better. He will return to the ship in November to serve for a further four weeks. We have reserved his first week of surgery when he returns to specifically cater to people needing cleft lip and palate repairs which is filling up fast!
Doctor Neil Murray our eye surgeon from New Zealand is aiming for about 50 Eye cases per week and is doing an excellent job. Melinda O’Leary who is a very good scrub tech has been with us for 9 weeks and is sadly leaving. It is very hard to get continuity of staff to be able to cater for the number of operations that we are trying to do. This is one of the many challenges doing volunteer mission work in Africa where crew turn over is very high.
Dr Ralph Coffman from the United States and Lord Ian McColl from the United Kingdom have been with us for two weeks and have been fixing inguinal hernias. During their first week the air conditioning went down over the whole ship for four days. It was a hot 35 degrees Celsius in the Operating Room Department which was very hard to cope with.
Anaesthetic Providers have been in high demand here on the ship to the point of requesting help from the Locals in Ghana. There is a very good hospital in Accra that kindly offered their Anaesthetic services so that we could continue to operate.
Dr Gary Parker who is the Chief Medical Officer Returns to the ship in September. He has been on board the Anastasis for many years and specializes in Maxillary Facial Surgery mainly removing large facial tumours and repairing cleft lips and palates. He will be operating with us until we finish the outreach on the 2nd February 2007 and then transfer to the Africa Mercy due to arrive in Tema, Ghana in January 2007.
We arrived back in NZ August 9th wow we soon forget that we have so much in our world that we really don’t need. Coming home was almost a shock I forgot how large our home was. And I must say its pretty average by NZ standards. Great to be home. There had been a lot happen in our absence so it seemed to take forever just to catch up with what was happening here in NZ. I took some time off to pack up house for moving town and one of our kids got sick from the trip with an infection so part of the month was a necessary breather!
I did an interview for Southland TV and worked on making OAI in Invercargill more self supporting eg. PO boxes and other important stuff.
A local lady organised a charity ball for us which we were delighted with and made $1000 we want to make it part of our fundraising calendar. Thanks Lacey! We continue to work on that sponsorship so important to our operating. We’ve had some good new contacts from a lot of promotion that went out during July. And our first sponsors for Russia have started!!!!!
I had a lot of enquiries re the World of Difference programme and wish all the applicants the best with this years selection.
I have mostly been out in the field with Groups and the continuity has enabled me to work closely with riders and volunteers and follow through with strategies I have put in place. Not only have the riders made progress but the volunteer’s confidence has grown and they are no longer afraid to try things that really challenge their riders.
Groups are finally starting to see the benefits of using a recognized process of care and have requested more resources to help them do this. (In the past they would never have asked for more forms!) Now that riders’ progress is being carefully planned for and recorded it won’t be long before it is fed back to the parents, schools etc and used to back up research. More people will become aware of how valuable riding therapy is, literally from the “horse’s mouth”. RDA volunteers will be a voice for their riders who enjoy this so much and get so much out of it but can’t always express what it means to them.
A presentation I gave at the Dyspraxia support group has brought more interest and I will be taking riding therapy to Group Special Education (GSE), a service offered by the ministry of education. I sincerely hope that riding therapy will get government recognition one day and I can’t help but feel this is a stepping stone on that path.
Training has also been back on the agenda and I have enjoyed doing a workshop for RDA volunteer managers on how to make their groups more magnetic to attract and retain volunteers… effortlessly. I don’t know if I’ll ever combine a workshop with a cheese and wine evening again though!
I also teamed up with a Cate and ran a basic volunteer training day at Totara Park RDA. New recruits and others wanting to refresh their skills got some updated horse savvy stuff I’ve recently got from the states and all experienced what it’s like being led well, and badly, on horseback (blindfolded) and hopefully realized just how important their role is in allowing the horse to work its magic without interfering.
The partnership with Special Olympics is strengthening and we were invited to compete in a ribbon day in Hamilton. Caroline kindly organized a van to transport the team and 4 riders came home dripping wet, exhausted but bursting with pride. Congratulations to them all!
