ETEP Equipment Coordinator Louise Bennett’s first visit to Timor Leste

For the first time in my 31 year nursing career, I am working with computers rather than patients. At the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, I prepare and send the surgical equipment and medical supplies that are required to carry out ETEP and various other health development projects in Timor Leste, PNG and the Pacific Islands.

In January 2011, I not only oversaw the delivery of supplies, but also had the pleasure of using them in Dili as a member of the visiting eye team. Working in the Hospital Nacional Guido Valadares Operating Suite was like nowhere I had ever worked before. It is a two theatre suite, relatively new but without hot running water.

Patients, previously identified by local eye care nurses, attended the eye clinic, where their eyes were checked by the volunteer Australian optometrists and had their affected eye and surgery required marked. Over four and a half days, 96 operations were performed in just one operating theatre that was shared by four eye surgeons – Nitin Verma, Kevin Vandeleur, Girish Naidu and Marcelino Correia.

The Timorese people are small, quiet and gentle who wore their best clothes to surgery! Most operations involved cataract removal, but the most special one was of a young boy who was bilaterally blind – blind in both eyes. After his bandages were removed, he was speechless, particularly when President Jose Ramos-Horta was asking him to describe what he could see!
 
While the days in theatre kept us busy, we had the honour of being invited to dine at the Presidential Palace with Ramos Horta, a strong supporter of the program. Not many people can claim that they have texted a President of a country to advise that they will be late for dinner. Such is the role of the scout in an operating theatre running overtime!

As my first time on a specialist visit to Dili, there were many obstacles to overcome on this visit, such as the language barrier, lack of local supplies, lack of running water and lack of or broken equipment/sterilisers.

However it is without a doubt that the people who are treated on these trips will have their quality of life improved, and I return home a richer person as a result of the experience.