Kiwi healing touch in the Solomons
Recently, a team led by Dr Vipul Upadhyay visited the Solomon Islands to assist the National Referral Hospital in Honiara. The visit was part of the project run by the Pacific Island Project division of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. This trip was funded by the AusAid programme of the Government of Australia.
Prashant Belwalkar caught up with Dr. Vipul over the weekend to understand the motive behind his dedicated team’s charitable visit.
Can you give a back ground of the visit, your involvement and the team was selected?
I’ve previously been to Rarotonga to operate on an infant-in-an-emergency situation. We had also arranged a visit of voluntary work to Fiji which did not eventuate due to change of circumstances. All this is charity work. The Royal Australasian College’s PIP division knows of surgeons who are required to carry out various activities in the Pacific Island nations and we get requests from time to time to offer our services for this cause. Mostly, only the surgeon and the anaesthetist are involved in such visits but I requested the PIP division to include the nursing staff as well. As surgery is only the first half of the job, the recovery and post operative care are quite important aspects for patient care and I wanted to get them involved as well. Fortunately for me, the PIP saw the far reaching consequences of this approach and accepted my request to include the nursing staff.
My team included Dr Ian Champan, Ms Ngaire Murry and Ms Shonagh Dunning all of whom belong to Starship hospital in Auckland. It is always easy to work with a known team as we know each other well and the timing as well as tuning works wonders in the field. This was for the first time, I believe, that we had a four member team from the same institution for paediatric surgery on a Pacific island. Hopefully, all such future missions will include the nursing staff as well.
What was the nature of work carried out by your team and how many patients did you manage to operate on?
Our visit was for one week which involved travelling to Australia and then to the Solomon Islands. Solomon islands comprises six main islands and a population of half a million people. We worked at Honiara where we managed to complete checkups of between 40 to 50 patients (children aged new born – 15 yrs; ward and clinics). During our week long programme we also operated on 15 patients during that period. Most of the operations carried out included urological operations, gastrointestinal surgery and even surgery involving free transfer of grafts. It is quite challenging as the facilities available there are quite basic and the infrastructure is not the same as in New Zealand. We also worked for 5 days non stop as the trip was short.
Apart from the surgery, we were also involved in teaching workshops for the nursing staff for operating room nursing and post operative recovery and care. for the patients. This was very useful to the staff at the hospital there. I also donated a number of my books to the hospital staff for future reference as well as understanding the operative protocols.
We are thankful to Air New Zealand as well as Solomon Airlines for allowing us to carry almost 20 kg extra weight of these books for which they did not charge any fees.
Did you travel on your own or were you given special privileges by Starship?
Vipul: This is entirely charity work done on voluntary basis and we take annual leave to fulfil the obligations. It is especially hard on the nurses as they are donating not only their annual leave but are working under more demanding conditions in this tour. However, I must appreciate the fact that Starship has been lenient in allowing four of its staff to take annual leave at the same time for such noble cause! The idea is to give back to the society that we live in, and this is possibly the best we can do! I have been doing this back in India as well whenever I visit my home town.
How did you manage to get such a high number of responses for your visit? Was it based on the wait list at the hospital or some other mode?
Vipul: It was interesting to see so many patients as some of them have to travel by boat for 2 days to reach Honiara [the capital]. A very interesting observation for your readers; the communications infrastructure is very rudimentary and some of the villages do not even have a phone there. However, there is radio available on the islands and our visit was widely publicised on the Radio. Apart from those who had fixed up appointments there were a few who turned up based on the news they had heard on Radio. So I guess, the good old airwaves still has some of the best uses in these places.
How do you look back at your and has there been any follow up with the authorities?
It gives me great pleasure when I am able to contribute to any such initiatives. Overall the trip was a great success in terms of the knowledge that we were able to impart to the local staff. We hope to keep in touch to ensure that the transfer of skills and knowledge is continued in future. The idea is to develop the local skills which can be very useful.
After the hectic operative schedule we updated the NZ High Commissioner for the Solomons, Mark Ramsden as well as had a debrief with the staff at AusAid.
The visit was very well received by local doctors and nursing staff. They have already extended us an invitation to do another visit next year. Of course, the patients and their parents were very grateful.
Recently, a team led by Dr Vipul Upadhyay visited the Solomon Islands to assist the National Referral Hospital in Honiara. The visit was part of the project run by the Pacific Island Project division of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. This trip was funded by the AusAid programme of the...
Recently, a team led by Dr Vipul Upadhyay visited the Solomon Islands to assist the National Referral Hospital in Honiara. The visit was part of the project run by the Pacific Island Project division of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. This trip was funded by the AusAid programme of the Government of Australia.
Prashant Belwalkar caught up with Dr. Vipul over the weekend to understand the motive behind his dedicated team’s charitable visit.
Can you give a back ground of the visit, your involvement and the team was selected?
I’ve previously been to Rarotonga to operate on an infant-in-an-emergency situation. We had also arranged a visit of voluntary work to Fiji which did not eventuate due to change of circumstances. All this is charity work. The Royal Australasian College’s PIP division knows of surgeons who are required to carry out various activities in the Pacific Island nations and we get requests from time to time to offer our services for this cause. Mostly, only the surgeon and the anaesthetist are involved in such visits but I requested the PIP division to include the nursing staff as well. As surgery is only the first half of the job, the recovery and post operative care are quite important aspects for patient care and I wanted to get them involved as well. Fortunately for me, the PIP saw the far reaching consequences of this approach and accepted my request to include the nursing staff.
My team included Dr Ian Champan, Ms Ngaire Murry and Ms Shonagh Dunning all of whom belong to Starship hospital in Auckland. It is always easy to work with a known team as we know each other well and the timing as well as tuning works wonders in the field. This was for the first time, I believe, that we had a four member team from the same institution for paediatric surgery on a Pacific island. Hopefully, all such future missions will include the nursing staff as well.
What was the nature of work carried out by your team and how many patients did you manage to operate on?
Our visit was for one week which involved travelling to Australia and then to the Solomon Islands. Solomon islands comprises six main islands and a population of half a million people. We worked at Honiara where we managed to complete checkups of between 40 to 50 patients (children aged new born – 15 yrs; ward and clinics). During our week long programme we also operated on 15 patients during that period. Most of the operations carried out included urological operations, gastrointestinal surgery and even surgery involving free transfer of grafts. It is quite challenging as the facilities available there are quite basic and the infrastructure is not the same as in New Zealand. We also worked for 5 days non stop as the trip was short.
Apart from the surgery, we were also involved in teaching workshops for the nursing staff for operating room nursing and post operative recovery and care. for the patients. This was very useful to the staff at the hospital there. I also donated a number of my books to the hospital staff for future reference as well as understanding the operative protocols.
We are thankful to Air New Zealand as well as Solomon Airlines for allowing us to carry almost 20 kg extra weight of these books for which they did not charge any fees.
Did you travel on your own or were you given special privileges by Starship?
Vipul: This is entirely charity work done on voluntary basis and we take annual leave to fulfil the obligations. It is especially hard on the nurses as they are donating not only their annual leave but are working under more demanding conditions in this tour. However, I must appreciate the fact that Starship has been lenient in allowing four of its staff to take annual leave at the same time for such noble cause! The idea is to give back to the society that we live in, and this is possibly the best we can do! I have been doing this back in India as well whenever I visit my home town.
How did you manage to get such a high number of responses for your visit? Was it based on the wait list at the hospital or some other mode?
Vipul: It was interesting to see so many patients as some of them have to travel by boat for 2 days to reach Honiara [the capital]. A very interesting observation for your readers; the communications infrastructure is very rudimentary and some of the villages do not even have a phone there. However, there is radio available on the islands and our visit was widely publicised on the Radio. Apart from those who had fixed up appointments there were a few who turned up based on the news they had heard on Radio. So I guess, the good old airwaves still has some of the best uses in these places.
How do you look back at your and has there been any follow up with the authorities?
It gives me great pleasure when I am able to contribute to any such initiatives. Overall the trip was a great success in terms of the knowledge that we were able to impart to the local staff. We hope to keep in touch to ensure that the transfer of skills and knowledge is continued in future. The idea is to develop the local skills which can be very useful.
After the hectic operative schedule we updated the NZ High Commissioner for the Solomons, Mark Ramsden as well as had a debrief with the staff at AusAid.
The visit was very well received by local doctors and nursing staff. They have already extended us an invitation to do another visit next year. Of course, the patients and their parents were very grateful.
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