All in a day’s work: How we and the medical supplies get to the hospitals these days

Anicka and I visit each hospital at least every six months. We do this at the same time the hospitals order supplies so we can take advantage of the flights and avoid the very long trek by jeep. As usual, we traveled first to Kikwit where the supplies are ordered from a local pharmacy depot and carefully weighed and put in boxes with handwritten packing slips. Then, when everything is ready and hopefully everything the hospital ordered was available, we put all the boxes in a city bus called a “City train” and head off to the airport where we hope that our MAF charter will land in an hour or two. Many government officials such as the DGM (in-country migration police), ANR (secret police/CIA), TVA (airport tax people), and representatives of the Congolese air force crowd in for the inevitable “official” verifications and taxes they require before giving us their blessing to take off. Of course, everyone knows we are a humanitarian organization working under the official national organization of churches with an official mission to visit hospitals, and that there is no doubt that what we are transporting are medications and supplies. However, this is one of their few opportunities to make some extra cash with the implied (and sometimes stated) threat of refusing us the right to use the airstrip. So while we wait for all the paperwork to be done, Mr. CIA with his large sunglasses and almost-permanent scowl of suspicion (except for the fake smile when he starts asking for bribes) and his fellow government agents who all look overfed and under-worked stand around anticipating their cut in the fees. Needless to say this isn’t exactly the most fulfilling part of our work.

 

MAF dropping off medications & supplies, and picking us up in Kajiji. The children are always the first to greet us and the last to say goodbye.

 

Once that’s out of the way and we’ve optimized the amount of payload we can bring with us on this flight we say our goodbyes and thank yous and jump on board for a 90 minute flight to our first stop: Mukedi.  We land and drop off about half the supplies and our personal baggage and in a few minutes, Dr. Gaspard continues on the same flight to Nyanga with their supplies and his motorbike. We’ll stay in Mukedi for a week to visit with hospital staff and help them validate and analyze their financial documents and hospital health indicators.

After a week at Mukedi we catch a smaller MAF flight to Kajiji about 500 km to south of Kikwit. This time we go with Dr. Benza who is making a supervision visit for the Kajiji hospital.

 

MAF dropping off medications & supplies, and picking up a patient to take to a larger better-equipped hospital in Vanga

 

Then the plane full of meds comes and drops off the meds and picks us up for the return flight. This time we have enough room to bring a couple of passengers. One passenger is a young woman who traveled all the way from Angola (over a 100km away) by motorbike with her husband for treatment for fistula. She was operated on at the Kajiji hospital and the operation didn’t go well so she was referred to a larger hospital in Vanga where the plane happens to be going. This flight makes a 5-6 day journey into a 3 hour journey. Unfortunately, we had to stop in Kikwit on the way and are harassed by the government officials for 40 minutes before we can continue on to Vanga and she can be admitted to the hospital. She has spent many days already recovering from surgery and has lost a lot of weight. We hope that she survives.

Then we continue on the same flight all the way back to Kinshasa where we are greeted by a thick cover of smog and the regular (and more pleasant) government officials at the N’dolo airport. We are grateful to MAF for their friendly and professional support.

-John

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