Kubin and St Pauls

We returned today from a fascinating clinic visit to Kubin and St Pauls. These are 2 villages on the opposite ends of Moa island, North of Thursday. Kubin was the original settlement. They generously allowed St Pauls to be set up on their land, apparently (though I don't know if this is generous as in "we'll let you live on it" or as in "we've been conned out of it by the whitefellas" which has certainly happened elsewhere in Oz). Anyway, apparently Moa Island was the holding island for Pacific Islanders after being taken from their homes and taken to farm sugar cane in Queensland. When the war (perhaps WWI?) broke out, the sugar cane farming collapsed and all effort was turned to the war. The pacific islanders went back to Moa and St Pauls was set up by the London Missionary Association to house them. The two communities are very different, therefore.

The flight over was beautiful. It's only a short trip, so we flew low and could see schools of turtles swimming over the coral. (Imogen insists she saw a couple of whales on the way back, too!)

Kubin clinic is a fabulous primary health care centre - if the doctors reading this could see it, they might be quite jealous! Very well designed, very well equipped. We stayed in a flat above the clinic. We would have stayed at St Pauls, which has an even bigger house attached, but the power was off for 2 days - no fans, no computers, no lights, no air conditioning. Whcih meant no doctor! I did the doctors clinic as planned today.

The clinics were interesting, though not too busy. There was a community meeting on in Kubin (I think to announce a recent death) and everyone was preparing for a tombstone opening ceremony in St Pauls. This is the grand finale to a funeral, where the whole community celebrates by opening the tomb. Deaths here are real community events (unfortunately, the high mortality rate means they happen much more frequently than they should.)

I did the clinics, and Jo had the children, who were befriended by the local island children. There was a beautiful secluded beach by the jetty, and from the jetty you could see schools of small sardines and large fish chansing them.

We also went to the local art gallery. It was opened especially for us by one of the local artists called Billy Missy, and we bought some of his artwork, because it's beautiful. (He also sold Jo some Crayfish he bought the day before, but then forgot to give it to us! Never mind. We were also given some home-made mango pickle by the nurse at St Pauls.)

And now we're back on TI, and the wind is blowing and it's raining. Rather lovely, actually.

Pearl Divers

Today we were back at Gab Titui, the cultural centre. They have an exhibition on about the pearling history on Thursday Island and the girls were fascinated. They were really disappointed to have to play on the playround, until I was able to finish my coffee and come into the exhibition with them. They watched a video from the 1960s called "Pearlers of the Coral Sea" and tried on a heavy diving helmet. For the rest of the day, they have been pearl divers. Their noght time story was about "the three bravest pearl diving sisters that ever there was" who found a magic oyster containing a huge pearl with black spots that looked just like Dimple, Imogen's favourite toy puppy!

If you think life is all pearl diving, I did manage to make a teddy bears picnic with Imogen this afternoon, and drew the best picture of a barbecue I've ever done (and that's not a sentence I write very often).

Tomorrow we're off to Moa Island to do clinics at the two communities there, Kubin and St. Pauls. Moa is one of the biggest Islands in the Torres strait. So no blogging for the next couple of days, though rumour has it that the health worker likes to take visitors out spear fishing - that'll be right up Charlotte's street.

Goodes Island

Friday was another busy day at PHC, and I taught at lunch time on "Neurology".

On Saturday (yesterday as I write this) we went with the Arnold-Notts on their boat again to a nearby Island. Emily and Charlotte came this time.


We swam (what else would you do?) and did some spectacularly unsucessful fishing for squid. Imogen snorkelled and just floated around. We had a picnic. In the photos it looks like quite a grotty little place, but it was very nice. However, there was a boat wreck, and an ancient rusted engine, some collapsed huts, an old collapsing jetty and even some old gun turrets.

We came home in the afternoon, briefly rested, and then had an outdoor party with an influx of children all 5 and under.

A new doctor has arrived for 1 month in December. And it's someone Jo knew at Medical School! He has 3 children - Innes, nearly 5, Ziggy, 2-and-a-half, and a 5 week old baby. They had been here for 5 years in the past, so they know everyone. Caitlin came and all the Arnold-Nott children came, and another of the doctor's nieces came (Emily and Anna, nearly another Bronte pair). Childcare is so much easier when they are all playign nicely. However, the mess it creates is enormous, so traditional roles reasserted themselves, as I went to church with the girls this morning while Jo cleaned!

Warraber

On we went to Warraber Island.

The first view you get shows the airstrip bisecting the island. After landing we aited to be collected. And waited. And waited more. We would have started walking then, but we had no idea which way or how far to go. So we went to a nearby house and asked. They were very helpful and gave us a lift to the "Warraber Guest House" where we were staying, next door to the clinic.

The guest house is where all official (ish) visitors stay when they're on the island. It's large with a kitchen, large living room, and 3 bedrooms. We were all in one together and borrowed linen from the clinic next door. Apparently they weren't expecting a whole family to turn up.

We'd been given an Esky of food for the trip by the hospital which consisted mainly of 2kg of frozen chicken! We discovered there was no way of lighting the gas hob. (I asked someone who stays regularly how they lit it: "Oh, I light the grill, then set fire to some paper and light the hob". "Ah," I said and bought some matches.) The whole island knew how naive I was when I asked if we could buy some beer, before being told it was a dry island.

The clinic next day was busy busy busy. They'd booked enough patients for both of us. They all needed seeing - I think it's the highest average HbA1cs I've ever come across.

(Note for non-medics - HbA1c is a measure of diabetes control - it gives a guide about the average blood sugars over the last 3 months. If you don't have diabetes it's under 6, if you're diabetes is well controlled you're around 7, if your poorly controlled you're over 8. These were all about 12)

So I developed my superquick "Tell me what you know about diabetes" consultation to get through all the patients without missing our plane. I was exhausted at the end. I didn't get to see much of the island. Jo and the girls did some more swimming, until seeing a stingray (not supposed to be dangerous, but that was what did for Steve Irwin, and was also in the news again that morning!) Here, again, the town looked well cared for, and, surprisingly, everyone was driving around in 4WDs. Maybe that's why the diabetes is so badly controlled...

We flew back that evening, and all fell asleep pretty quickly.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Coconut

Well, we're back from our Island hopping and a really busy few days, hence lack of posts. I'll make up for that now with a splurge!


Our first clinic was on Wednesday on Coconut Island, also called Poruma. It's about a 30 minute flight on a small aeroplane - here you see the girls sitting in. It took Imogen some convincing that there would be no toilet on the plane (though she didn't seem to miss the cabin service). While Jo and myself were admiring the views of the islands below and even saw a big (thanfully old) shipwreck, the girls were more fascinated by the ear plugs. They looked a bit like sweeties.






Shortly after we landed we were met by the nurse at the clinic, Michael, on his quad bike. The bike took our luggage, while we walked the 50cm (perhaps a bit more) to the clinic.

This picture isn't Coconut, by the way, it's another island we saw on the way in the plane, but it does look a bit similar!





There we shared the workload. Actually it wasn't very busy as the community had organised what I'm told was a "whinge at the council" meeting. The whole community turned up, so no-one was at the clinic. I did some face painting on Imogen, Emily and Charlotte. Despite my offers, none of the patients wanted the same treatment. Jo saw a few people labelled as "women's health".










For the first time in my medical career, I had a swim in the sea during my lunch break.











That afternoon, the girls (all four of them) played in the sea with some very friendly locals. I did some home visits. Michael took me around, offering friendly abuse to everyone he met.











The island itself is long, thin and sandy. Great care has been taken by people with their gardens and the were the most perfect frangipanis I've ever seen. There is also this ruined church, built out of concrete, but made to look like stone. There's no roof, and huge cracks in the walls - a really unexpected find!






When the clinic was finished we caught our onward flight to Warraber. As Michael said, comparing it to Coconut: "What it lacks in length, it makes up for in width."

Jo's negotiations

Jo stitched up someone's wound in the middle of last night.
Seeing him today she said "You should give me a big fish for sewing you up last night."
"No I won't," he said. "You catch a fish, and I'll give you a recipe!"

On Wednesday we are off to a place called Coconut Island tomorrow. It has an exclusive resort there where people like Russel Crowe stay (probably when they're slumming it). I don't think we'll be allowed in. They'll take one look at our mess and lack of designer clothes and lock the gates. However, they will let us treat any of their sick guests; the health centre gets a mention on their website - and I'd be very surprised if there was more than one health centre. We're there to work at the clinic, by the way, not doing sight seeing. Well, I'll probably be doing the clinic while the rest swim and snorkel. I shall tell Jo she should catch me a fish. She'll probably just get me a nice recipe instead, though.

Then on Wednesday we go to Warraber Island and do a clinic there on Thursday before coming back here. I don't think they have an exclusive resort, just a local council. For these pair of clinics we'll fly in a teeny weeny (maybe even a toy) aeroplane, hopefully with beautiful views. It should be an amazing experience.

It does mean there are unlikely to be any blog posts for Wednesday or Thursday, so as you've been very good, you can all have a couple of days off. But be warned - I might try and write something tomorrow...