Moz Medevac

After the big 16 hour day that was the cataract flight two days before (previous blog post), I was expecting a catch up in the office day on Monday.

That plan changed when the phone rang early on Monday morning with a request for a medevac out of Beira, Central Mozambique.

Brian, a mission doctor at a teaching hospital in Beira, said his daughter Eden had a suspected ruptured appendix and needed surgery in South Africa. Scheduled airlines couldn't take her and it was a two day drive on less than impressive roads. Could we help?

We've been flying to Mozambique for almost 30 years so we had the contacts to get the necessary permits. It didn't take too long before we were on our way. Even with the official paperwork, fueling and having to clear customs and immigration, we still managed to land in Beira by early afternoon.

On the descent we noticed quite a lot of flooding.

We met Brian and Eden and arranged for her transport out to the aircraft. We were on the ground less than an hour with the Moz paperwork and fueling done, before setting sail again back to South Africa.

Brian, being a doctor, took care of any medical needs Eden had during the flight.

There's always room for a pic of range and terrain information we have available to us during the flight.

500 miles later, Eden went straight to hospital for surgery after we landed in South Africa.

The following photos were taken in the hospital by Brian

 And this one soon after discharge a few days later.

Thank you.

Paul and Cathy

Sight Flight SA

Mercy Air recently resumed its association with MAF and Flying For Life.

MAF South Africa created Flying For Life in 2011 to meet the needs of isolated south Africans living in rural areas.

Today countless people in South Africa don’t just live in poverty but they are also cut off from the institutions that exist to address their needs, by difficult or dangerous terrain. It's not just that they are born into less-fortunate circumstances, but their location deprives them of the opportunity to change that.

Mercy Air and Flying for Life enable medical professionals, early childhood development trainers, social development specialists and other non-profit organisations to reach communities in need.

On this occasion we picked up a team of volunteer ophthalmologists in Johannesburg and flew them to a rural hospital in Thohoyandou in the Limpopo district of South Africa to perform cataract surgery on 18 patients. This saved them a 12 - 14 hour round trip drive over what would probably have been three days.

It still meant a very early start for Paul though to get to Jhb in the first place.

On landing on Thohoyandou a minibus was waiting to take us to the hospital 45 mins away.

 

On our arrival we 'trollied' all our equipment into the theater.

Out in the corridor the support staff prepped the patients...

... and did a few tests to work out what prescription implant lenses they needed.

In the theater each cataract procedure took about 20-30 mins, and it was pretty much a day long non-stop procession of people in and out for surgery.

Very interesting and quite a privilege to get this close to some life changing moments for many people.

I was even able to help a bit - under strict supervision!

A sobering sign on one of the noticeboards in the corridor. Please never let me need a black sticker for a very long time!

We left a little late in order to fit as many procedures in as possible.

The strip in Thohoyandou was tar but hasn't seen much regular use for a long time. The main activity it seems were the local kids who danced for us on the threshold as we prepared to take off. Health and safety - for who!

One of the guys who flew with us had his PPL and aspirations to use aviation in a mission context in the future. It was good to chat 'all things flying' on the way back.

 I dropped the team off in Jhb just at sunset and therefore had to fly back to Nelspruit at night.

The bright lights of Jhb - soon gave way to the blackness of Mpumalanga

Thank you.

Paul and Cathy