It has been a while since I last communicated with you folks
back home. All is well here in Papua New Guinea. Tyronza and I have been
healthy and enjoying the nice weather in the mountains. We have not had any
further natural disasters. The temperature here has been nice with sunny days
and rainy nights. My cistern has been full, so regular showers continue to be
nice. Hope you are enjoying an early spring. We have only one more month before
we start back home.
I believe I have written
concerning this before, but it needs to be mentioned again. PNG is such a medically
primitive nation that many of their health care statistics are woefully bad!
Such is the case when talking about maternal
mortality. When I last looked, this sad piece of data was the worst on the
planet and it seems to be sinking even further!
During my career of nearly 30
years doing obstetrics in Cape Girardeau, I never experienced a maternal
mortality. I would like to believe it was because of something I did right, but
maybe I was just lucky, or maybe God was looking out for my patients.
The record here has not been so
stellar. The first year I came to PNG there was one death under my care. She
arrived on Labor & Delivery following a home delivery with considerable
blood loss. She was fully arrested and, unfortunately, so deep in shock, I
could not bring her back.
The second year there was three
deaths. One had postpartum cardiomyopathy. Unfortunately, there is little that
can be done with that diagnosis and death is inevitable, at least in the
highlands on PNG. The second patient had taken poison. That, too, was
ultimately fatal, although it took 3-4 days. The third patient developed acute
hepatic failure and died. We were never sure of the cause and lacked the
ability to diagnose or treat the problem.
This year I really was feeling
good about the situation, until this past week. The woman’s name was Nancy. She
had delivered a live child in a nearby village five hours before she arrived on
L&D. She had lost much blood and had a retained placenta. Her hemoglobin on
arrival was 3.7 gm, but she seemed stable. However, shortly after I got 2 units
of blood going she arrested. We worked on her for 45 minutes, but were not
successful. I have been a little depressed over this situation, but really
don’t know what else I might have done.
On a positive note, a family
member is adopting the child. She has come in and is being given ”Lactogen/Lamictal”
to start lactation.
You folks stay healthy. Looking
forward to seeing you soon.
God Bless You,
Dr. P & Tyronza
