A day in the life of…

Each morning the team wakes up usually somewhere between 5.30 and 6 am to get down to a quick breakfast at the hotel before heading off to the hospital.

Even at this time it is a little warm on the ward. During the early hours of the morning some of the patients are taking the chance to sleep in before they have to get up for a physio session. Others are up and about ready for the day. Like our first patient, Christopher who is already sitting up and walking around as well as Philomena, who takes every chance she can to run around and have some fun.

7am each day the team arrives at the Hospital to take over from the night staff. Once the volunteers and local staff walk in the front doors of the Hospital they find any opportunity they can to assist in making the day run as smooth as possible. A lot of the team meet in ICU for handover as well as some of the surgical staff who aren’t preparing for the first patient of the day. You would almost be amiss for thinking some of the staff haven’t had any or much sleep at all. Still giving full attention to their work and their patients they definitely deliver the utmost care with precision and dedication, regardless of the time of day or how long they’ve been awake for.

The volunteers all have their individual ways of dealing with the different challenges they face each day in their jobs back home in Australia. Let alone adding the complexity of a new country; available equipment and services, cultural sensitivity, patient difficulties, language barriers etc.

This is not the first time many of the team have dealt with these challenges and aim to provide an incredibly high level of services to each and every patient they encounter.

They also enjoy the small amounts of down time between cases with some enjoying a visit to the ANZAC ward memorial. Thi cemetary houses memorials to a range of Australian and New Zealand soldiers as well as the fighters from PNG that fought alongside them.

Back at the Hospital, the PNG team are being introduced to the “Tim Tam Slam” by OHI anaesthetics and scrub nurse team member Lisa Perrett. Coffee with a Tim Tam straw may be the only break they get all day but the staff here definitely make the most of it!