Elizabeth is in Fiji!: Health Outreach-ing

This past week the health centre team and I experienced a perfect example of what it means to work in public health in Fiji. The Dreketi Health Centre medical area covers a population of about 5000, spread apart 12 villages and 42 settlements. Technically, every year we are supposed to visit each village and settlement at least once. With a staff of only 3, this is a very difficult undertaking, so we decided to prioritize with visiting each village.

This past week we checked off our final village for the year, and it was our most remote village.

To get to this village we started by driving on the main (paved) road about 45 minutes, from there we turned off and headed down a dirt road for about another 30-45 minutes. We then got to a junction where there was a small forestry research station. At this point, we were already deep in the “interior” of the island, meaning we were basically surrounded by jungle at this point, it’s also extremely wet and rainy in this part of the interior. At the research station we stopped and asked a few of the workers how the road was and if we would be able to get there in our truck. They promptly responded “absolutely not,” so naturally we ignored them and continued on our way. The road to the village started out not too bad but it wasn’t long before we got to the hills where there was such deep mud that the car couldn’t go. Determined to get to this village, the doctor and I got out and started pushing the truck over the muddy hills. Eventually, we decided we couldn’t take the car any further so we set out on foot. Barefoot, with backpacks full of medicines and supplies on our backs we began our trek to the village.

Then, like a vision, two of the village boys appeared by horseback. We gave them all our gear and let them take it to the village for us. As we were going up and down hills through the mud we were all slipping and sliding and falling all the way to the village, even the horses were sliding down the hills. After about two hours we finally arrived at the village, covered in mud, rain, and sweat ready to get to work.

Although this village was so hard to get to, it ended up being one of the most rewarding. Because of how remote it is, this village gets hardly any visitors so they were all so excited to have us there. The first thing they did was give us all a change of clothes and a hearty lunch.

It’s days like this that I think about how much these nurses and doctors do for their patients. Not many professionals back in America would be willing to push trucks out of mud, and hike for hours through the rainforest just to get to a few patients. But this is what it means to work in public health in Fiji.