Leaving Ternate

Good bye Ternate!  It has been a pleasure serving here and meeting the people of this island.  Here in Ternate  (pronounced Tear-NOT-tay)  the Mercy staff has seen more than 10,800 patients.  We admitted over 160 onboard and did 81 surgeries.  6,200 pairs of glasses and sunglasses were distributed.  We conducted 2-3 MEDCAPS per day, which are the off ship medical clinics, and several Surgcaps, which are the off ship surgery screenings.  Preventative Medicine held SMEEs which are instructional/ educational meetings with local medical students.  The Vets visited several sites and treated over 200 animals.   And, as always, the engineering team (Seabees) are out building, repairing, painting, drilling wells. etc.  Some of them go out ahead of the ship, so they are already working in Timor Leste.  Others leave from the ship each day to work and still others are left behind in Cambodia drilling a new well because there were problems with the first one.  We also conducted plenty of COMSERVES, which are community service projects.  The Biomedical Equipment Repair team was able to conduct over $170,000 worth of repairs to broken or malfunctioning equipment.  As you can see, there are a multitude of activities going on at any given time.

Me at work

I'm am enjoying my little world of Discharge Planning.  We play a vital role in getting the patients off the ship and safely home again.  We review, with each patient, all medications and wound care, activity instructions, etc that they must know to go home.  Most will not have access to medical care or advice once they leave us.  We are also responsible for "counting belly buttons."  Each evening, there must be an accounting of how many are on the ship.  We keep track of the patients and their escorts.  Each patient comes onboard with an escort.  It is usually a family member, but sometimes a friend.  Some patients end up having two escorts.  It is usually a child that can't be left home, so we have one parent as a patient, the other is the adult escort and the child comes along for the ride.  It gets quite confusing as to who is who sometimes!  Then, to make it more complicated, many escorts become patients after they arrive!  Usually, it's because they need dental work.  So, at the end of the day, we report how many patients, how many escorts, how many females/ males went off the ship and how many patients are left.  If we are off in our numbers, we work until we find it and the count is correct.

One day, we discharged 75 people off the ship!  It was quite chaotic in our area for awhile.  We had a room full of Indonesians, who do not speak English.  Some had been processed and were waiting for the next boat, some were not processed and some from both groups had to catch a special boat to Jailolo where they lived.  They all start talking and mingling with each other, then we didn't know who was who!  Yikes, where is our interpreter!?  I've picked up some Bahasa Indonesia, but not nearly enough!

I was thinking of many nurses back in the states today as I discharged a woman who had surgery.  Her husband and infant had stayed with her the entire time she was here.  We give them all beds and food while they are here.  So many nurses back home get all uptight if family members come to visit during off hours, or heaven forbid, use the patient's bathroom!  Then, all our patients in the US must go out of the hospital in a wheelchair and are assisted into the car.  Infants must be properly buckled into car seats.  Culture shock!!!  Here, the patients walk down 6 levels of ramp to a dock hanging off the side of the ship.  They have to step onto a boat that is rising and lowering with huge waves.  Then they get a sometimes rough ride to the pier ( we see our fair share of vomiting.)  At the pier, they climb out of the rocking boat and traverse across a rather challenging ramp.  Those in wheelchairs are scared to death as military men lift them over all the obstacles, sometimes in the pouring rain.  I haven't seen a car seat yet, but I did see a guy on a motorbike with one kid in front and one kid on the back.  My commander saw an entire family of 5 on a motorbike!  LOL!

I really love the people here.  They are so genuine and sweet.  They are truly grateful for anything and leave us with many thanks, blessings and prayers.  They all want to shake our hand as they leave.  Any who have a camera want their picture taken with us.  I was held up for five minutes the other day while an entire tour group took turns getting their picture taken with me!  It's probably because I look funny, but I feel like a celebrity!  LOL!  Of course, I love to get their picture too.... here are some of my wonderful people of Indonesia...