Text: Dr J Pons
Amongst the many services it provides, White River based Mercy Air flies teams of optometrists to do sight saving cataract surgery across the other side of South Africa – in the Northern Cape.
“The powerful Kodiak lifted us to the skies. As the wheels lift off, I’m struck by the relief of having my team and precious equipment aboard for the four hours flight to Upington. A grateful reflection that without Mercy Air, we would by now be well into a tiring two day road trip, from one side of the country to the other.
Flying not only avoids the hazards of South African rural roads, but avoids four dead days of travel (there and back) for the very stretched specialist team.
Mercy Air pilot David Schumacher is an extraordinary mission pilot, who has forsaken flying airlines for small aircraft, and he is becoming an invaluable technical member of this outreach.
Arriving in Upington, after a thorough briefing, we were soon in the hospital setting up the equipment, supplies, assembling the microscope and creating the various work stations in the clinic.
The Medical team consisted of myself, Dr Northway, Dr Wasik, Ophthalmic Assistant Lomagugu Mthembu, and Scrub Nurse Nontobeko Mhlanga. Tharien Schoeman as Optometrist and of course and the energetic Dr Hans Hendriks from the District Health System Hospital, assisted by two Stellenbosch student volunteers, one of them his daughter. Tertia and Anmarie.
Nurses from Karsten Farming, provided invaluable manpower in the patient waiting/prep area in theatre.
District Health System Hospital staff couldn’t be more helpful: The theatre staff and the ward nurses came in early and left late each day. Problems were overcome. The microscope light faltered and within 10 minutes, and to great surprise, Mr Stemmit came up with a new microscope light bulb! And of course David Schumacher in his magnificent multi-role as Pilot and Ophthamic Technician/logistics.
Tharien (Caring for Sight) had screened 30 patients in her practice in Springbok, and arranged transport to Upington using a combination of government and private bus.
They arrived on Sunday in time for the clinic, this time with the Biometry (which determines the lens implant strength) already done by Tharien.
And the Upington patients, who had been on unending waiting list, were delighted to receive the invitation from Sister Basson to come for surgery. Since we were relieved of much of the usual Sunday evening work, Dr Martin arranged better patient flow, knowing we had to screen hundreds of people in the next three days. Besides improving efficiency, this also aided the elderly and wheelchair patients, and more improvements were made in the days to come.
Our work day starts with a 07h30 short devotion and by 9 am the theatre was ready to receive the first batch of patients for surgery.
The clinic team saw numerous walk-in’s and Ophthalmic emergencies. Our retinal camera, i-Care, A-Scan and Ultrasound B probe proved very useful, and aided in the accurate assessments and the Pre-op examinations. The hospital had repaired the Argon Laser so for the first time, PRP laser was performed for Diabetic Retina conditions.
The pace in theatre was blisteringly fast: We knew we had over 30 people to operate on each day.
Of course the possibility exists of running over time and having to cancel cases. But I can’t imagine what I would feel if I had been waiting years for my surgery and then at the last moment, it was cancelled.
So we pushed through each day, with few breaks till the last person had their surgery, sometimes by 7 pm. Sister Nontobeko and Sr Williams were the best scrub nurses I could wish for. Dr Northway was invaluable as the coordinator in the theatre and now has a greater respect for Ophthalmology.
Besides efficient and safe surgical techniques, the formula for success includes adequate theatre nurses, enough surgical instrument trays, and steady and uninterrupted supplies. It seems like we get all that right for this outreach where we made a new record of 34 surgeries in one day.
Supplies of Intraoccular Lenses, which are unavailable in the state hospitals, are provided by a mix of Caring for Sight, Medical Mission Eswaitni, and Surgical and Ophthalmic Supplies (RSA).
We set a new of 94 surgeries in 3 days, with minimal complications.
We are astonished and blessed by the support from the local community. A team from Riverflow provided counselling and prayer for those that needed encouragement, and also provided our lunch and teas. The accommodation was provided by Karen Hendriks and her B&B neighbours, whilst delicious evening meals were provided at the Protea Hotel by a benefactor. We ate well!
The needs of this community are very obvious: It seems that over a quarter of a million people in this part of Northern Cape (Upington and Namaqualand) have limited access to eye care, the closest being Kimberley, about 800km away from Springbok. With the little time we had, our team was able to make a small difference against disability, blindness and pain. Whilst our long hours felt like a drop in the ocean of need, for those we ministered to, the impact was enormous.
Thank you, kind donors, for being a part of restoring lives in the Northern Cape! To see videos, visit Mercy Air on Facebook.
