Physicians Assistant Student Volunteers in Sri Lanka
In January 2005 Ms. Christina Athens, senior PA student, participated in relief efforts in Sri Lanka. Prior to her enrollment in the PA Program, Ms. Athens worked with a relief agency. As the agency responded to the disaster they asked many people associated with the agency including Ms. Athens to participate in their efforts. Upon her return from Sri Lanka, Christina provided the following comments on her trip to the program. She has agreed to share them with alumni.
Hello everyone and greetings from England,
I arrived safely yesterday after a grueling two days of travel. Flying West is the hardest, as the day just seems to go on and on. I think it will take me a few days to adjust to the change in time zones and recover from my exhaustion.
In the past few years, I have had the opportunity to travel to many amazing places and do a lot of interesting things, but the time in Sri Lanka has been incredible. We were able to provide medical care to refugees who desperately needed it. The people were very curious about why we were staying and living in their camp, as the rest of the NGO's only held mobile clinics and stayed comfortably in hotels further inland on the island.
We worked and lived in a refugee camp north of Batticaloa on the east coast called Usena Heathaham. The refugee population was about 1600 and made up of a large portion of Tamil people. This is the area where most of the conflicts between the Sinhalese government and the Tamil Tigers have taken place. Needless to say, there was a large presence of military from both sides. The government and the "rebels" have been somewhat working together since the Tsunami, but I think this will change in the coming weeks. There was a noticeable increase in military presence over the past few days before we left. The refugee camp and the surrounding area were all mine fields. We walked only on paths that were well trodden down and did not venture off any roads. It was quite an interesting experience. Sleeping at night was difficult because men from the camp stood guard and fired off guns every few minutes to keep the elephants away. It was a nightly serenade of gunfire, dogs barking, and rain.
The clinic went well despite the brutal heat (usually around 95-100F) or pouring rain. We were loaned five tents from the military that we used as our Pharmacy, ICU, Counseling tent, and to see patients. We treated many upper respiratory infections, chemical pneumonitis (from being submerged in sea water), a lot of diarrheal disease and dysentery, and infected wounds that the people had from the tsunami. We did treat a few people following a grenade blast in the nearby town. Supposedly this was not a conflict between the Tigers and the Government, but instead between the Christian and Muslim factions. Some Muslim people were attending a funeral and a grenade was thrown into the cemetery. Three people died and sixty were wounded. Mostly we treated infected shrapnel metal wounds. We saw a few snake incidents, but we had to transport them to the hospital 40km away to be treated with antivenom. One of the biggest problems was and still is community health teaching. There is an inadequate amount of latrines, only seven for the entire camp. Many of the refugees have dug "holding wells", which are basically pits three feet deep and square that they then filled with water. We saw a number of children vomiting and use the bathroom in the wells, and then watched in horror as people coming behind used the same water for dishwashing, bathing, and tooth brushing.
We received visits from German and American newspapers, French and Spanish TV, district medical officers, a member of the Sri Lankan parliament and a brigadier general from the Sri Lankan Army. All were quite curious why we were living in the refugee camp instead of "commuting" in with a mobile clinic.
As far as local reptiles, we encountered many over our time in the refugee camp. Not only are there vipers and cobras, but poisonous spiders, scorpions, and very weird deadly centipedes (much bigger than the ones I am used to seeing at home). We had to pour powdered bleach all around our latrine to keep the scorpions away. We only had one episode (that we know about) of a scorpion in our tent. Usually we were awakened at night by frogs jumping onto us or by little sea crabs that just loved walking into our tent. Sri Lanka, which I did not know before, has one of the highest specie densities of snakes in the world.
Over 90 species are found within the borders of Sri Lanka. I was the lucky person to have the first encounter with one of these right in our camp. It slithered right over my leg as I was sitting on the ground counting out some meds for one of the patients. It's a long story, but thankfully I remained calm and did not get bit. The debate is still going on between our interpreters whether it was a brown mamba or some type of viper. All I can say is that it is the fastest snake I have ever seen.
Well, there is a brief overview of my time in Sri Lanka.
Christina
Last updated:
Friday, August 25, 2006 11:52 AM
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