Village doctor’s work reaches beyond limitations

Dr Sharon Brandon ministers at a rural hospital in Rumginae, Papua New Guinea. Sent from Dunedin City Baptist Church, Sharon has been in PNG with Pioneers since September 2008.



A mother in the pushing stage of labour for 16 hours finally came in from the bush. The baby died and the mother was damaged internally. It looked as if she would be permanently incontinent without complex surgery - surgery that we can’t do but, praise God, she recovered and months later is starting to do well.
Help is limited here. Postoperative pain has to be tackled without paracetamol or codeine or voltaren; the x-ray machine only works sometimes in the afternoons; we don't have the resources to send a plane to investigate a message about sick people in remote bush, with broken radio and no health worker.
Still, we do what we can. A man walks around on a broken leg that’s still mending. A young boy, one of my “relatives” from my adopted Dande tribe, goes home smiling after treatment for diarrhoea. A nursing sister calls me on the walkie-talkie to update me about a man with severe asthma. He is sitting comfortably eating dinner. Doctors from the town government hospital bring a patient in nearly dead. She pulls through and is encouraged in her family problems by the gospel.
Half of the PNG health system is church-run, although government funded. In the rural areas, church-run hospitals like ours provide the bulk of the care. There are many challenges involved with rural medicine. Who but Christians have the desire to serve in the bush with the love of God and community of believers? I appreciate the legacy of infrastructure and hospitals left by the early missionaries, however, there is still a long way to go before even basic health care is available to people in many rural areas.
Lately, I have been reflecting on how Jesus is the source of our lives. A vine branch dies when it is separated from the vine, and no fruit will grow. Loving and obeying Jesus is our joy and what we were made for. It’s worth reflecting on how we live in Him. It encourages me again to take every opportunity to impact the spiritual lives of our patients. To do that better I need to grow in living in Him myself and get better at telling stories about God in everyday ways. The branch illustration is a good one, not just for here. We are all called to know and reflect Jesus so that others can see him.