It is great to have Dr Gary Parker back on board the ship our Chief Medical Officer. He has gone full steam ahead into surgery helping those less fortunate with facial deformities. He has been working tirelessly here on board since his return along with other Crew Members.
We have new crew in the Sterilization Room. Bas and his wife Grietje joined us this month and have been a great help. Bas works in a Sterilization Department back home in the Netherlands and has a wealth of experience. We are both putting our heads together to try and make things work better and more efficiently for the Operating Room Department. Bas and Grietje are only with us for 2 months and then we will get new crew whom I will have to train up so that we can keep doing operations. In November we will have 3 operating rooms functioning which will produce a high turn over of instruments needing to be sterilized. We hope that the equipment such as the autoclaves and ultrasonic cleaner hold up until the end of the outreach!
During this outreach the Oxygen Concentrator on the ship has not been working and so we have been sourcing our Oxygen from Accra in Ghana.
Oxygen is an essential part of the Anaesthetic required for the patients to receive their operation. Fortunately we had a Biomed Technician on the ship and she has managed to fix the concentrator so that we can now fill our own tanks which is less hassle for everyone involved.
Jacinto our Hold 2 Manager from the Dominion Republic has been working tirelessly trying to organize our sterile supplies. He has a big job in sorting out all the equipment once it arrives in 40 foot containers from the International Office in Texas (USA). Jacinto is not medically trained and English is his second language so it has been a big challenge for him as he adjusts to his role. I have had many visits down to the hold trying to explain what equipment looks like and what it is used for. Many medical companies have donated goods to Mercy Ships in order for us to be able to continue in our work in West Africa. We are very thankful to them for the generosity.
The beginning of September saw my family relocate to Queenstown. This month I’ve been finding my feet in a new place. I will be travelling to Invercargill for our shop and base about once a fortnight. So its great to think we can now have a presence in Queenstown area as well. I will spend time connecting locally with people and hope to have some regular activities happening here early 2007 if not before!! Most of my work is now on the phone and computer so I’m very portable. One of my trips to Invercargill this month I had the opportunity to meet with Dr Don Brash I talked to him about the work of Orphans Aid and sought some info on International Aid.
Dr Brash will also help us with a charity auction coming up at the end of the month. Our highlight of the month was the sending of our first NZ specialists {Ken and Alice} to be based in Targu Mures for us working primarily in the hospitals with the many abandoned children there. They left at the end of the month and will initially be based in Targu Mures for 3 months. We hope to see many more children helped because of their involvement. They have a background in foster care. I made a trip earlier in the month to Nelson to visit with Ken and Alice and discuss this further. We continue to work on groundwork for the Russian project. I am making plans for a return trip to Romania in November. All in all a great month building slowly but surely!!
The term ended for the riders but the RDA volunteers continued and jammed in lots of training and heaps of fun into the short “holiday”. Greenhithe RDA volunteers had two consecutive weeks with a coach and therapist team to refresh their skills and update their practices. We had a ball and would love to continue this model with other groups.
A few of us attended a seminar by the SPCA on an animal assisted therapy project with “at risk” youth. The Melbourne ladies might be working with guinea pigs and rabbits but the results are still the same. The kids are developing empathy and compassion and are offloading their troubles to the animals who they can trust. I am so pleased to see that the therapists with “four legs and fur” are finally getting more recognition for what they can offer and that the SPCA is setting the boundaries so they are never exploited.
Debbie taught a group of us how to exercise horses on a lunge and transport horses in floats and trucks. Both skills we all need to maintain our horses’ training and support our riders to get to special events, respectively.
Ambury Park hosted a volunteer recognition day that we combined with a bit of training (get it in wherever we can!). Volunteers got to ride the horses and participated in similar events to the riders at the ribbon day with Princess Anne. We gave them temporary disabilities and many were blown away by the insight that this gave them.
A meeting with Special Olympics enabled us to develop our relationship further and set goals of how to extend our combined services to more riders.
Cilla and I attended a fundraising workshop by the Auckland City Council which was very informative and will hopefully enable us to support the RDA Groups with information that may help them with their fundraising in future.
The highlight this month was the Vodafone Foundation World of Difference announcement. I am so pleased with the new drive to support children and youth (especially those at risk). I believe there is a lot we can do with this generation to nurture a better world for all of us in years to come. Congratulations to all the new winners!
At our regional meeting we evaluated the training plan for Area One, 2006 and plan to improve things for next year. We aim to offer a more user friendly, flexible system that will make courses more available and more attractive to volunteers in future. We are grateful for the Nomads Golf Club who is continuing to fund training into half way through next year.
A last minute decision saw me on a plane to California to investigate as many centres as I could get to while over there, make contacts and bring back ideas and resources. What an amazing trip, but I’ll leave the details for the next update.
