Letter from Pakistan
Yesterday I held a blue bird in my hand it was a youngster and had flown against a window and concussed itself. It had a beautiful blue markings like a half collar, delicate tints on its wings. Otherwise it was very similar to our English robin with delicate legs and rather long claws.
It was brought to me as the doctor to be cured! I put it in a little cage we have and left the door open. In a half hour it had recovered consciousness and flew away. It was such a beautiful little bird to handle.
Also in this valley are scarlet pimpernels which are a deep sky blue. I wonder where they change colour. Half way across the world?
The valley suffered the worst earthquake in its history in October 2005 with loss of over 78,000 lives. Then followed the flood in 2006 when the mountain slips caused a lake to build up and the dam suddenly broke.
I always ask the patients here if they are living in tents or houses and after 2 years two-thirds of the patients are still in tents. They are poor mountain people in the main and they flood the gates of the hospital everyday. Many stories are told of burials of children for five or more days who have survived, but many will have life long disabilities and injuries.
It is easy to forget these disasters in the west and sink back into our own comfort zone.
Roads, schools and hospitals were all devastated and a whole generation of school children was wiped out. Flat concrete roofs and no walls gave them no chance. Dry stone wall built houses ended as a heap of stones.
So after two years the government has committed itself to rebuild all the schools in the valley. The valley being a hundred miles long and thirty miles wide with very mountainous terrain.
First much rubble had to be cleared and many houses were submerged in mud, so the locals put tents on their roofs and later build small wooden houses. One result in living in tents for two years is now we have a tuberculosis epidemic. There are often 15 people in a tent. At our hospital out of a 120 out-patients in a day, we're getting 3 positive sputum's a day and previously we had 6 new cases a day.
Even if we had the time and energy to go into these remote villages its hard to find the time to pursue all the cases with two and a half doctors. We went to a tent and found the cause was a very old man who had never been near any hospital, he spread it to nearly half his family. To add to this we have 4 deliveries every 24 hours and many of these are difficult cases due to lack of calcium in the diet.
I at 81 years wish to retire to the Lake District (UK) where a stone built cottage awaits me. I work half a day so I consider myself the half a doctor.
Doctor Haroon, aged 50, is in charge of the hospital and desperately needs a break for a sabbatical after twenty years of pioneer work.
We need at least two doctors in January 2008 so he can go on a sabbatical and one must be a man. We are in the foothills of the Himalayas so surely some young doctor could spare some time out of their careers, they would need to be Christian.
It's also good for bird watching, flowers, fishing and of course trekking. A word of warning. I came out after the death of my husband for 6 months and since then have been here for twenty years!
For more information about the vacancies at Kunhar Christian Hospital visit www.healthserve.org
