“I phoned them this morning, and again before we left, and they assured me the ambulance would be here. Now my patients must wait here for them!”
The nurse said this to me, apologetically more than angrily. His day had already been a long one, and it was only midday.
“I will just have to go and fetch a taxi and pay for it myself, otherwise these patients will never get there.”
Wednesday, March 11, was a public holiday in Lesotho. I was on call for any emergency flights. At 8:30 a call came in. A pretty standard request: Go to Lebakeng, pick up a pregnant lady on a stretcher, as well as an old lady with a broken leg, and transport them to Qachas Nek, where the district hospital was.
Within 45 minutes of getting the call, I had left home, preflighted the aircraft and was taking-off. Another 30 or so minutes later, I landed at Lebakeng.
The nurse, Mr Karabo, came running to the plane. “We are very sorry. In the time since we called you, the baby was born and needed to be resuscitated. Would you mind waiting maybe 30 minutes for us to stabilize him before you fly them to Qachas Nek?”
"Of course!” was my answer. As far as I was concerned, they could take all the time they needed. I was there for them, not the other way around.
The maternity ward at the clinic
I made sure the plane was good to go, then I wandered around waiting for a bit. I went to the maternity ward to see how things were going. Karabo saw me and said, laughing ‘You don’t want to go in THAT door!’ Pointing to the one that had the sound of a crying baby behind it. Fair enough. I am confident I don’t need to see that side of health care.
The patient with the broken leg waiting in the plane
Karabo briefed me on the second patient. The lady with the broken leg. She was wheeled to the airplane in the meantime, on a wheelchair with a wheel that looked like a bent hula hoop after a few months of playground use. I don’t know how the ‘wheel’ chair was even able to roll. But nevertheless, the lady was loaded, and strapped in, while we waited for the mother and child.
I never learned what the complication was, and have learnt that such information isn’t very important to the everyday person in Lesotho, so I didn’t ask. All I needed to know was that they needed better medical care than the rural clinic could provide.
What was probably 30 minutes later, Karabo came back, full of smiles. “Here are their bags. Sorry for the wait. They will be here soon. Oh, and my apologies, she can sit and wont need the stretcher.”
I reconfigured the seating area of the plane, and a few minutes later the mother, child, and another nurse came to the airplane, everyone walking along smiling like it was a normal occurrence.
Once they were loaded up, with Karabo on board to assist the patient handover at the district hospital, we got going.
Qachas Nek airport
Lebakeng to Qachas Nek is about an 8 minute flight. Karabo explained to me that the bridge had recently been washed away, and now their only means of transport, besides walking, was airplane. This, combined with a recent lack of funds from the government to provide the regular flight schedule, meant that he had been on duty for 2 months, with no sign of a shift change any time soon. He said he was not willing to leave his patients and go home, so he had no choice but to keep working and wait on regular flights for medical staff to resume.
Even waiting on an ambulance wasn’t a big enough deal to stop this new mom smiling
We landed at Qacha’s Nek, to find no ambulance waiting.
‘These guys!’ Karabo said irritated.
‘Africa!’ He said again, which made me smile. ‘Even time management is a problem.’
After a few calls to try and get the status of the ambulance, he finally told me that the only way would be for him to flag down a 4+1 (the local slang for a taxi car), and pay for them to get to the hospital.
‘Well, I am happy to wait as long as you need,’ I told him.
‘I better go with, because I need to make sure these patients are not neglected.’ He answered.
I was happy to hang out at Qacha’s Nek for 30 minutes more: Drone time! Any excuse I can get to send up the drone and get nice pictures is an opportunity I take!
When Karabo returned in the taxi, the drone was hovering close by. With all stress now relieved, as the patients were safe, he laughed and said to me ‘Ah, this thing! It's technology gone too far! Amazing.’
After loading him up, I flew him the 8 minutes back to Lebakeng.
On final approach, I noticed a blob on the touchdown zone that wasn’t usually there. Sure enough, as I got closer, the baby donkey that was the blob raised its head, annoyed that I should want to land right where he was snoozing.
Landing aborts are not uncommon here. So the procedure comes pretty easily. Maximum power, clean up flaps, open cowl flaps, and climb away, following the airstrip specific abort path.
As I circled overhead, I saw a shepherd running to chase the doneky.
My next approach was donkey-free, and after shut down Karabo said ‘sometimes I wonder why I do this! Everyday is a matter of life and death.’ Of course, he said this with a smile, both of us silently knowing there is nothing we would rather be doing.