Pacific Partnership part2

This is what greeted me on Saturday morning; he was spraying pesticide but looked fairly awesome.
The team set up trestle tables to do initial assessment of problem, weight and blood pressure and olgeta gathered. They took over all the consulting rooms and had between 8-12 physicians consulting.
Those needing the dentist or had eye problems were sent off to other areas. Meanwhile about 300 people gathered to be seen.

The PP medical team wandered about in fatigues and it was difficult to tell who was the faciomaxillary surgeon from Otago, a trauma nurse, a corpman (very competant nurse auxillary) or a reservist fireman from Ohio. They felt the same, as the nurses here generally do not wear uniform and the Emergency room had a gathering of Nivanuatu with nothing to distinguish sister in charge from the patient's relative.
The Nivanuatu were very patient and came with their chronic coughs, backaches and knee pain. There was a general expecation that something could be done to help them.

Dr Bruce Greig, a Sydney GP, was in charge of the team and managed to keep smiling. He does this once a year to make a change from suburbia. Veronica was the senior  US nurse who organised everyone extremely well and managed a smile.

Over the next 4 days there were about 500-600 people seen a day.
I saw one of my TB patients queueing up to get his ears checked. Defaulting diabetic patients were told they had to lose weight and go back to the diabetic clinic! Patients with  high blood pressure were told that they had to restart their tablets.

Dr Noa Hammer and Dr Torrin Velazquez had excellent consultation skills and were a pleasure to watch. They were very ably helped by interpreters from the USP (University)  or by some Nurse Practitioners who were by the end giving health education without needing to be told!

Nwarikar and Annie have a visit from Big Jimmy and his team

At the end of the day they gather to go back to their ships. Meanwhile Annie has been doing a lot of networking.

 The eye team and the dentists did fantastic work with over 1000 extractions and lots of glasses organised. The medical team had lots of chronic problems and I am not sure 'how much value was added' to what is usually provided here.
It is worth pondering what would happen if free medical/dental/eye checks were offered in Chicago/Melbourne/Wellington/Liverpool and who would turn up with what problems.