For the 2nd straight year the Bana Rural Health Clinic has had the
opportunity to have a Kudjip Nazarene Hospital doctor join them in their
work. Last year it was Dr. Susan Myers
and a team that installed solar power, did pastor training and church
statistics training. This year, Dr. Bill
and Marsha McCoy joined the staff at Bana for a week.
Bana is a small village in the Sepik, far away from Kudjip and far
away from the nearest hospital. The
clinic, with a staff of 3, serves a population of about 15,000, with the
nearest hospital over 4 hours away on a very bumpy road. Buckley and Charity and their son Philip,
have been serving at Bana since they graduated from the College of Nursing, 3
years ago. Rose, is a Community Health
Worker, who also serves along side of them.
The three of them serve that community in many ways: seeing the patients
who come, giving immunizations, going out on patrols, delivering babies, doing
health education and more. Day in and
day out, they are the front lines, they are the ones investing and giving their
lives to the people in Bana.
For one week in October, Dr. Bill and Marsha McCoy got to join
Buckley, Charity and Rose in their work.
The McCoys weren't alone, Gabriel and Emelyn Mahisu (Rural Health
Services Director), and Bapo (Community Based Health Care Work), DS Yambe and
many other supporters of the church came out for this event and for the
services held throughout the week. Bill
saw patients each day, treating those that needed a doctor's care, teaching
Buckley and Charity about different diagnosis and management, and reassuring
the patients about the treatment they were receiving at the clinic by Buckley,
Charity and Rose.
The visit was an encouragement to many, the patients, the Bana staff,
the village of Bana, to the church, to Rural Health Services, to the McCoys and
more. Encouraging our staff is one of
the reasons why we started sending doctors out to serve with our staff in our
rural clinics. Other reasons are to provide
teaching and training to the clinical staff that will last beyond the doctor's time
there, to give patients a chance to see a doctor that they might never
otherwise have the opportunity to see, to connect Kudjip and Rural Health
Services more, and to give the doctors a chance to see more of PNG and what
lies beyond our station gates.
This was the 4th successful trip, of doctors going out to rural
clinics. The first was Dr. Susan in Bana
in 2015, then Dr. Imelda went to Dusin in 2016, then Dr. Andy to Ulamagi clinic
in 2016 and now Dr. Bill to Bana. As we
reflect on these trips and get feedback from the doctors, the staff and our
Rural Health Services, we continue to look for more opportunities and ways to
train our staff and encourage those who work beyond Kudjip Nazarene Hospital's
gates.
Kudjip Nazarene Hospital serves over 60,000 outpatients a year, but
there are many more patients that are seeing, hearing and being shown the love
of Christ beyond the gates of Kudjip.
Rural Health Services is the avenue in which that happens. RHS has 6 clinics in remote areas of PNG that
are staffed by dedicated Nursing Officers and Community Health Workers who
often are the only medical personnel in their small communities. These clinics handle the routine and emergent
medical care that comes up from delivering babies to treating hypertension,
coughs, colds, doing suturing and more.
These workers have moved away from their homes and families and are
being missionaries in the remote parts of PNG and lives are being impacted for
eternity as a result.
In 2016, RHS, like all Christian Health Services, had their budgets
cut by 40% from the government. This cut
has been devastating to RHS. They don't
have the patient volume to use patient fees to account for their deficit, so as
a result services are what get cut. For
some clinics that means a staff is being cut, for others the number of
medicines being sent in is being cut, for others, the clinic itself is facing
closure. We would like to not have to
close any of the clinic doors, to pay our staff correctly, to be able to have
adequate supplies of medicines at the clinic and to be able to medevac patients
out to larger hospitals when needed, but without funds it is hard to do all
that. We don't know what the budget will
look like for 2017, but we know these clinics won't survive if they don't get
more funds for next year. Would you
consider helping? Would you consider
praying about how you might be able to partner with us in serving those who
need care in the rural parts of PNG?
If you are interested in helping these clinics continue to run, you
can go here
to give support. If you want to find out
more about RHS, don't hesitate to contact Gabriel Mahisu, the RHS director at gmahisu@yahoo.com.
