Flying Doctors and the Migration of the Wildebeest

« Return to Kenya

“If only you had arrived a day earlier,” says Sean Culligan, the grizzled helm of the operation. With ginsu-sharp wit and a sense of humour drier than a camel’s tongue, Culligan explained that yesterday would have been the best opportunity to film the outfit in action. A car accident in the Serengeti needed two Cessna Caravans, flying over the heads of animals at sunset, evacuating the patients back to Nairobi. Nobody was too badly injured, and there would have been enough space to fit our crew. As for today, we would have to wait and see. In the meantime, he showed me around the modest headquarters, its control room manned 24 hours a day by trained medical personnel, its visitors centre, and private hangar. Three former RAF pilots, who wanted to contribute with the tools and knowledge at their disposal, founded AMREF in 1957. Today, the organization has several aircraft capable of operating in a wide range of conditions, and evacuating patients from to Nairobi, or as far as Europe or South Africa. Culligan, himself a former RAF pilot, is a man with a healthy obsession for his job. Almost every day, he has to weigh up the information coming to the control centre. Does the patient need to be evacuated? Can the plane land in that area? Is the evacuation financially viable? How is the patient going to get home after the evacuation? Life and death decisions, with the knowledge that every day, his organization is saving lives, building communities, giving hope. Well worth getting up in the morning.

I meet Bettina Vadera, the German Medical Director who has been in Nairobi for 14 years, a former volunteer who found her calling. She agrees with my comment that Africa’s magnetism is hard to resist. Even with the traffic, even with the chaos. For the volunteer program that Bettina coordinates, doctors get unparalleled medical experience, and the chance to give something back. 34 year-old Dr Dan Deckelbaum of Montreal is a second-generation flying doctor, following in his father’s footsteps, a volunteer in the early 1970’s. Dr Dan is an emergency trauma surgeon, picture the real life ER, and he’s taken a few months off of unpaid leave to work in Kenya. Once he leaves, other volunteer physicians follow, gaining experience in the field, and the opportunity to contribute to communities who need their skills most. I ask Dr Dan why he doesn’t just go on a beach vacation like a normal person. He explains that when you see the gratitude in the eyes of a patient, someone who’s never ever seen a doctor before, it’s better than any vacation. To understand what he means, we hopped in the back of an ambulance for a traffic-choked drive to Kenyatta Hospital. Visiting any hospital, in any country, is never about entertainment. Yet here we are, an entertainment-focused TV crew, walking bloodstained hallways, feeling the eyes of the curious, knowing full well that everyone we pass has something bigger to worry about. Dr Dan tells me about the particular challenges of the Kenyan medical system, where public health insurance is negligible, staff are underpaid and overworked, and conditions are appalling. Injury, he explains, is the third biggest cause of death in Africa. Meaning, if you were in a bad car accident in Europe, you’d be patched up. In Africa, you’ll probably die. Millions of people, dying without need every year, simply because they don’t have proper access to health care. Of course, for those with money (like Kenya’s upper class and most of its 30,000 remaining white inhabitants), excellent clinics do exist. The Flying Doctors offer standby medical coverage for as little as $50 a year, and in a few days, I would see first-hand just how much that small amount buys you. But in a country where the average person earns as little as $830 a year, emergency medical evacuation insurance is low on the list of priorities. As we walk along the corridors, passing through a broken elevator and hallways needing light bulbs, Dr Dan tells me some of his emergency room experience in Miami (“you wouldn’t believe the violence we see!”) and the fact that most medical TV dramas are the product of overzealous imaginations. Finally we reach the children ward, ushered in to find a skinny boy, clad in green hospital pajamas, a tube running into his nose, his growing bony limbs above the sheets. Knowing his story – the massacre that killed his parents, the gunshots that blew off half his face – it’s a heartbreaking moment to meet Lopotunye . He seems relieved to see Dr Dan, the mysterious man who flew in from the clouds to save his life. With the linguistic help of Kizito, on of the FD’s medical practitioners, Dr Dan asks Lopotunye how he’s feeling. As I watch the interaction, I can barely keep it together. We’ve met many people and filmed in many places these past 3 years, but I know the crew are feeling it too. Drool drips from Lopotunye’s mouth as he does his best to speak through a jaw that Dr Dan stitched up together. He somehow manages to smile a couple times, if not with his mouth, than with his eyes. Dr Dan is impressed with his progress.
“You should have seen him before,” he says with a grin. “He had no life left in his eyes.” After all he had been through, Lopotunye wants to live, and I could feel it. My eyes holding back tears, I tell Lopotunye that he was a very brave boy, and that we will show his bravery to the world, so that other children can be brave too. I wondered about his future. Orphaned with a deformed jaw, Lopotunye would most likely end up as an outcast. His challenges were only just beginning. Sean Culligan had explained this to Leah back in the office, and Word Travels had kindly agreed to donate $400 for reconstructive surgery. Our visit, at least for one skinny kid with big eyes, will hopefully have lasting and positive consequences.

Gonzo Gallery for Flying Doctors and the Migration of the Wildebeest

view full gallery

Tweet