SIM

The following is from an SIM (Seving in Missons) news-letter, written by Sally Brading.





A Night on Call in the Bush Story List




It’s about 2:00 a.m. on a warm night in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa a few days before New Year’s 2004. I’ve just put my head down when the bleep goes (unfortunately this technology has reached rural S. Africa). Inwardly groaning, I go to the maternity unit in my shorts, worrying whether I will be able to deal with the sick newborn baby who has just arrived only hours after being born in the village. The baby is pink but is making odd noises. It is premature, born around 28 weeks. There is no anxious couple leaning over the incubator; instead the teenage mother lies alone and asleep in the neighboring room.
I feel unsure of what to do. The only thing familiar is the uncertainty. A token gesture, I listen to the baby’s heart and lungs, my adult stethoscope taking up most of the baby’s chest. It sounds horribly tight.

With mounting disappointment, I call the second. I am not prepared to blunder through this alone, relying on distant student knowledge when the baby’s life is at risk. The “second” is Nic who is a "Comm-serve" doctor a year more junior but far more experienced. With great difficulty he gets a line into the umbilical cord. I "bag," squeezing oxygen into the baby’s lungs, and watch the monitor showing the amount of oxygen in the blood (another rare piece of technology which actually works). Nic calls the nearest hospital with a ventilator two hours away. They are willing to take the baby. This is his only chance. The next painstakingly frustrating challenge is organizing the ambulance and then waiting. It may take up to 24 hours to arrive. I continue bagging, and Nic returns to bed. Perhaps an hour later the monitor alarm goes off. The oxygen levels are dropping low.

The baby is going a mottled color. Inside is a rising panic I’ve never known. The baby is dying in front of me. I cannot do anything about it. Knowledge and experience may have reassured me that this was the likely outcome. As it is, I feel guilty and inadequate. I call in Mum and ask the midwife to tell her the baby may die. She looks sad but displays no other emotion and returns to her bed. I reluctantly call Nic to discuss the situation. I feel guilty for disturbing him but desperately need his reassurance. He agrees we stop. I walk back to bed in the early morning light, with the sun rising over the plains of Kwazulu Natal and wonder why I came out here.

I’ve come out for six weeks to taste medical mission but have learned far more than this. In this rural South African hospital God has brought me to my knees, overwhelmed by the enormous human need and my weaknesses. At the same time, I am aware of God’s character displayed in these people--the small, trusting prayer of an African child, the powerful singing of hymns in church, or early morning on the wards, the tiny baby strapped securely to his mother’s back, and the family attending the emaciated relative dying of AIDS.

Many tears are shed as I struggle with daily frustrations with stretched resources, communication difficulties, and the limited scope for treating the numerous people affected by AIDS (approximately 80% adult inpatients). I am constantly aware of my lack of knowledge and skills to deal with the breadth of medical problems from difficult deliveries, malnourished children, to broken legs or tuberculosis.

My perfectionist nature is a hindrance. God would rather we do something poorly than not at all, and this is a lesson which I continue to learn back in the NHS. This is a difficult lesson if it means someone dies because I do not have sufficient knowledge.

The friendliness and smiles of the local people despite their poverty contrast with my material richness. I am challenged to simple living, generous giving, and holding onto the importance of people, not things.

God has used this rich South African experience to continue His work in me. As I land in a snow-covered England, I try to hold onto the warmth of God’s love that I have experienced in my work. And I realize that God wants me to share it with others.