Now, let me talk to you about foreign aid.
So this week we had some amazing new machines donated to the hospital.
We have got two vital sign machines (blood pressure, tympanic, oxygen probe), we have three oxygen concentrators (amazing), two nebulisers and an all singing, all dancing monitor including a 5 lead ECG (wooooooeeeee), the first ECG machine for the hospital. This is great news.
Ready for the bad news: Most of these machines need replaceable parts in order to make them function and to keep them sterile. We have tympanic’s delivered with a box of 20 ear probe covers, we have ECG leads with electrodes attached, but none spare to replace them. This means we can safely do hmmmm let me think? 1 whole ECG! Thanks so much. Where’s the paper to record all this data we’re now able to collect? We have oxygen concentrators and nebulisers, but where are the masks? And do you think nebulisers are on our essential medicines list?? This is a hospital in one of the top 10 poorest countries in the world. They can barely afford to maintain it with electricity and running water. People need to think about that before they donate these wasted machines.
And there’s more… Nobody knows how to use them. Just to digress, I was cleaning out the training room the other week and came across lots of expensive, precious equipment sitting there, gathering dust. Why are these in here gathering dusts I ask? This is vital diagnostic and therapeutic equipment that, and I don’t wish to sound melodramatic, but equipment that can save lives people. Save lives!
Because nobody knows how to use them or how to care for them they get left or broken. Wasted in a system that needs all the help it can get. It’s not that I’m ungrateful but the excitement fades to frustration as I slowly realise that all we’re going to gain from this generous donation is the need for a larger store room. My heart breaks.
Luckily I do know how to use them and I will do my upmost to try and get the supplies we need. I will dust off and send forth these vital machines and I will endeavour to teach as much as I can in the time that I have. That is my promise and it is the best I can do.
This is not an isolated tale. I see and hear the terrible ways in which aid is donated almost every day. I hear stories of project after project failing due to a lack of evaluation, education and maintenance. 
For example, a large number of toilets were fitted into a community. Job done, money well spent, you can all go home with a pat on the back. The following year, everyone is still defecating in the river and the nice toilet blocks are used to store rice. Why? Nobody thought to include the villagers in the project. Nobody explained or educated them and nobody, most importantly, listen to their story. My heart breaks.
A fellow volunteer managed to get a grant and has spent the best part of last year helping to build a fantastic library for a community school that has pretty much nothing. It is nearing its opening date and this week, boxes and boxes of donated books arrived. Excitedly she opened the box. This was hopefully going to be her legacy. Something amazing that she did. So she could say, after two years of (not always, but mostly) frustrating, hard, soul destroying graft, I did something for the kids. Excitedly she opened the box……..
Hundreds of out of date medical journals! Are you kidding me???
I don’t even want them. Medical and nursing practice is already in dire need of pulling out of the dark ages. What use is research on infectious diseases from the 1950’s, thank you? What a waste. Not only in the books themselves but in the thousands of dollars it will have cost to ship them over here. We don’t need your rubbish. My heart breaks.
I see it in the t-shirts. All the unwanted clothes that you guys donate to charity are sent here and sold for next to nothing. In a country where illiteracy is rife, especially in the older generation, here is an example of what I see every day: a little old lady sweeping out a stair well with GET FU@KED blazoned across her chest, another unsuspecting citizen with “I’m a gynaecologist, open up and I’ll take a look”, seriously? I could go on. 
Ok. Ok. So I’ll admit it. It is funny at times. But is it appropriate? Is it ethical? Would you let your child go to school with it on? I think not.
The lead nurses from around the province were in town for their annual committee meeting. I was asked to talk about research and evidence based practice. So I did. I talked about on-line data bases, critiquing literature, writing standards. Why? These people run clinics without water, electricity, phones or internet. They deliver babies by torch light. They have umbrellas up inside when it rains. How are research methods going to help? Find out the best angle of the torch? What colour of umbrella best promotes health and well being? Do we need to learn to walk before we can run? I heard about clinics without walls, ambulances without tyres and nurses without homes. Out of the 67 cold chain fridges in the province, less than half are functioning. Thousands of vaccines have been lost. Why? They are unable to get a reliable gas supply. My heart breaks.
What is happening out there? I question my reasons for being here on a daily basis. Do I do it for me? Or do I do it for them? More than that though, I question the reasons for any of it, all of it? Do we help or do we just show them that there is a better way, only it’s still way out of reach. Is it a better way? Who says? I spend many an evening pondering what would be the fate of the Solomon Islands without all this aid, without everyone thinking they have the best way, the right way, the only way. Would it crash and burn as we all think it would or would it manage to grow, in its own way, the way it should? I don’t pretend to know anything about economics and I sure as hell don’t have any answers. Do you?
In other news this week:
Hospital closes when water pump is stolen to “teach community a lesson”. Despite a new pump being donated the following day, the hospital decided to remain closed for a week until the thief was brought forward.
Education authorities live in fear of being stabbed. Extortionate travel requests are finally being refused on the grounds of.. policy.
Schools winding down for Christmas. Teachers starting extended leave (in October)
Guest House owner looses the plot. It appears to be the final straw for Masoud as he makes a very disturbing short film to teach the rats a lesson on what happens when they eat his coconut biscuits.
In the face of adversity, volunteers still manage to fun!
annamayventure 