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Wednesday October 3, 11:17 PMSingapore medical team finishes mission in ZambiaSINGAPORE: A medical team from Singapore has just returned from Zambia, where they helped improve the lives of the people there.Getting to their destination, which is located next to the Luambe National Park in east Zambia, took the team 28 hours. Being the first medical team to venture into the area, the team of four doctors, four dentists, a nurse and a psychologist were there to treat locals who had common health and dental problems. The villagers were unfriendly at first but soon, over 1,000 of them came for treatment. During the eight-day mission, the team also gave away medications and drugs as the village community they visited had little medicine available. Malaria, tuberculosis and HIV are prevalent, and many are suffering from dental problems, said team leader Dr Myra Elliot. The team also had to treat a 26-year-old fisherman who had been attacked by a crocodile. He had extensive wounds on all limbs, abdominal wall, scrotum, and his back. It took the team three and a half hours to work on him in a make-shift clinic. With the nearest hospital 100km away, Dr Elliot said the man would have died if the team had not done what they could, given what they had. Team member Dr Tan Hooi Hwa said: "I think it's a sense of being able to think on your feet. It's a real challenge (because) we are used to desk-bound job and what we encounter every day is more or less a set of protocols. "But when (you) are out in the bush and going somewhere else, you literally have to think on your feet, you improvise." "Actually, the tougher it is, the more I enjoy (it). It's like a camping trip for all of us, so we like to rough it out," said another member Dr Au Eong Kah Chuan. The team members paid for the trip with their own money, but said it was a small price to pay for an experience of a lifetime. Dr Elliot has been organising similar trips to Pakistan, Madagascar and Indonesia in the past ten years. - CNA/ac |
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