Medical Ships - Australia

news updateJuly 2012 edition

G’day from Ken

After another month of outreach, we are now into our third for the year! Over the last two outreaches we have continued with our community development assisting over 80 villages in the Gulf Province including 15,871 health services and training. The stories of saved lives continue to come in, and I’m thrilled to be able to share them with you. Behind each statistic is an individual who is truly grateful. For the elderly man in need of spectacles, for the pregnant mum in need of a birthing kit for safe delivery, for the child needing a tooth pulled to keep infection away, and for so many others, I say thank you.

www.ywamships.org.au

Life in a Jar of Milk

The first feeding was an incredible success!

On a metal bed frame with no mattress, lay a very thin looking mum and her little one-month old baby. After the Ship arrived in their village recently, the midwife on board, Debbie, was brought to check on the child. As she talked with the local health care worker, she found out that sadly, the mum, who was from a different village, had TB and was having trouble producing enough breast milk to feed her little girl. The effects of this were evident in the baby’s extremely low weight.

Meanwhile, on board the Ship, the team in the dental clinic happened to include a dental assistant, Shey; mum of a six-month old baby girl named Resina. Along with providing much laughter and many smiles for the volunteers on the Ship, Resina and her parents now had another purpose to fulfil while in Karati.

After talking with Debbie, Resina’s mum Shey, decided to express what milk she was able to and see if the little baby in the village would take it. The first feeding was an incredible success! The midwife first put some on to her finger and gave the little baby a taste, then proceeded to feed her the rest through a syringe.

In the next few days, one mum from the village came to the clinic with her own jar of milk that she had expressed for the baby. The same day, Debbie, along with Medical Coordinator, Hannah, held a meeting for the village mums where they discussed such circumstances when a mum can’t produce enough milk for her baby, and what they can do to help. The mums spoke about concerns they had, and Debbie and Hannah were able to address those, as well as dismiss many untrue rumours about germs and diseases being transferred. They talked about sharing the burden of supplying milk for a malnourished baby between many mums, so that the responsibility didn’t fall on just one other mum to produce everything. Most importantly, they discussed the value of life, and that without someone to speak up and step out to help this struggling family, this little baby would die. Any mum in this one’s position would do anything to see her baby live, and because of that, all the other mum’s could understand and have compassion on this family and others in similar situations.

Since the Ship’s visit to Karati, Medical Coordinator, Hannah, received a message that the little baby has been gaining weight! It seems this village has caught the Ship’s motto…I Want to Live!

Making Dentistry Possible

Morea, along with a local patient and volunteer Jeana Wiemeyer

In continuing with community development, so far this year we’ve been able to deliver 15,871 health services

Primary Health Care Patients - 1,483Immunisations Given - 784Dentistry Procedures - 1,352Optometry Clinic Patients - 751Group Education Attendees - 1,227Individual Education Attendees - 1,148Village Workers Trained - 66Preventative Health Resources - 9,060

Since 2010, Morea, a health worker from Kapuna Hospital, has worked alongside the YWAM Medical Ship. This year he became the third dentist on outreach two and expanded his skills by learning how to do fillings, and is now doing them on his own. The YWAM Medical Ship was able to leave him with supplies, such as anesthetic, to support his work in Kapuna.

Would you consider...

Helping to Establish Dental Training in PNG?

To continue improving and developing dental training in PNG, we currently have 20 portable dental systems offered to us in the United States. For the cost of $2,995 you can purchase a dental unit and help us equip a local, like Morea, to be trained and equiped for basic dentistry. The portable, satellite operated dental chair even provides the opportunity for micro enterprise as they offer dentistry to people in their region who would otherwise have none.

The Portable Dental System (PDS-500) that would be used to train and equip locals in PNG

PNG National and dentist, Morea, scouts out the village for patients that need to be attended to

Thanking our Partners:

For more information:Address: PO Box 1959 Townsville QLD 4810 Australia

Phone: +61 7 4771 2123 Fax: +61 7 4772 4414Email: info@ywamships.org Web: www.ywamships.org.au