10 long hours back to Kunming city. We got
caught up in 3 police roadblocks. Had lunch at a buffet restaurant that served
MSG everything (not complaining because it tasted delicious). Playing Heads Up while on a moving bus. Had no
idea how the driver is able to stay awake even though we were all going to doze
off. Mountains mountains everywhere. Scenery was beautiful. Nearing the city,
factories producing smog… lots of factories producing smog. Finally Kunming
city.
We unloaded all our baggage and equipment
at our apartments and headed off to meet our contact Diana and Martin. They
brought us to a fantastic restaurant, which served delicious lion head
meatballs, fish noodle soup, braised pork, and wheat tea (which looked like rat
poop but still delicious nonetheless). And that was day 0 for the 2nd
leg of our trip.
Day 1
All of us headed down to Ming De primary
school to begin what would be an amazing accomplishment by the SMSV team. As
most of us were on our 1st medical mission trip with SMSV, it took
us some time to properly organize ourselves. We split the group to perform
different task, which included
1)
General registration
2)
Temperature taking
3)
Skin and hair check
4)
Oral examination
5)
Height and weight
6)
Eye sight
7)
General examination
Accompanied by Nicolea’s parents, Dr Tan
(Mom) and Dr Tan (Dad), the clinical year students were tasked with performing
the general examinations while the rest of us was split performing the other
tasks. Big Boss Ma’am Nicolea went around assigning us tasks and minimizing the
bottlenecks. Despite the high number of students and the stench of the school
toilet (which we unanimously called a glorified Long Kang) just 5 meters from
where we were conducting our examinations, we persevered and screened every
student diligently.
These were what we noticed examining all
these kids.
1)
They generally had very good
overall health
2)
A lot of them had really bad
tooth decay
3)
Some students didn’t even know
they had really poor eye sight
4)
Kindergarden kids are extremely
cute
5)
Older kids not so
6)
Smoking is apparently allowed
in schools as we saw some teachers smoking in the school courtyard
7)
Many of them only bathed once a
week
We concluded our health screening at Ming
De primary school and headed immediately back to Happy Ark (our HQ) where we
did our force prep for the 2nd half of the day, family visitation.
We were once again split into smaller groups and assigned different families to
visit. We were also tasked give them a bag of rice and some cooking condiments
and to conduct general health screening procedures for the family. The family
visits were a real eye opener for us. We saw families living in desolate
conditions, where the whole family would be living in a cramped compacted space
filled with clothes, cooking ware, toiletries, pales and books. Many of these
families were really hospitable, giving us plenty of oranges, some even
preparing whole meals for us. Unfortunately, many of these people also had
medical conditions, which required medical attention. However, money was being
a major social determinant of Health. They had difficulties visiting the local
public hospitals even though the government subsidized treatments. Time was a
limiting factor for us, as we really would have liked to follow up on their
progress and ensure that they were compliant with treatment and medication. Our
team still did all we could to advice these families on basic lifestyle changes
in order to reduce the risk of future of co-morbidities.
We had lunch at a small restaurant close to
Happy Ark. It was amazing how this restaurant could fully feed 20 people under
250 yuan (50 SGD). The food was seriously masterchef quality, uber delicious
(might be the MSG, but I guess Male-Pattern-Baldness can settle itself later)
:P
So we were back at Happy Ark after lunch to
help clean up the place. Forgot to mention what Happy Ark was all about besides
being our HQ in Kunming. Basically, Happy Ark is a community after school
opened by a Malaysian couple that wanted to help out children of families in
lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Volunteers from various universities offer
their time to tutor these kids and ensure that they are catching up with their
school work. The school also provides a basic library and playroom for the
primary school kids. Last but not least, they have a nice toilet as well.
So we began the clean up process of the
classrooms at Happy Ark. The inner Filipino of Amos was unleashed and he began
mopping up the floors of Happy Ark while Reginald cleaned the ceilings. Sarah
(looks like a filipino) took care of the little kids while the rest of the crew
wiped the tables and chairs.
We ended off the day with 1 more family
visitation and its off to a Korean restaurant to have our dinner.
Day 2
Today we headed off to Ming Zhi primary
school to do a general health screening on the kids. Taking the experience from
the previous day, we were able to quickly set up the stations. There was a
stark improvement in efficiency as compared to the previous day and the kids
were able to get their health screening done very quickly. At 11pm we bid
goodbye to Nicolea’s parents, Sathis and YiWei as they were heading back to
Singapore. It was awesome having these wonderful people in our trip.
In the afternoon, Nicolea was tasked with
visiting the family of 1 of the students at Happy Ark. This family had 6
children cramped up in a small room. The sad part of it was that the mother was
mentally retarded and deaf, and she had to take care of her 6 children, 1 of
which was also mentally retarded and deaf. We had to go through her young daughter
in order to find out the family situation. There was little we could except
giving the packet of rice and other foodstuff.
The principal of Ming Zhi school was kind
enough to treat us to lunch at a local restaurant. So on our plates we had
crispy chili shrimp, century egg, some ma la soup, some fish soup that tasted
funny, corn kernels and peas, peanuts, and other stuff.
In the afternoon we finished up our work at
Ming Zhi and headed back to Happy Ark where most of us were on tutoring duty,
assisting the students in their homework. While some of us gave up on giving
kids due to their poor command of mandarin, others persevered (especially Ee
Jie, who tried his best teaching the kids although language was a clear
barrier). We also met a Brazilian residing in Kunming who was volunteering at
Happy Ark!
And off to dinner to a restaurant near our
guesthouse.
Day 3.
Our final full day at Kunming. This time we
went to Zhang Hong ( I think this is the name) primary school to screen the
schools kids. Same ol’ process of screening once again, and I think we were
super efficient this time round.
We had our lunch and did our final health
screening back at Ming De primary school (from day 1). While we were doing our
health screening, apparently they were having some music singing competition as
well. Each class had to sing a Chinese song (not too sure whether it was a
communist song) and the principal was the judge. So while we were auscultating
the children’s chest, the kids were singing their songs with great conviction
and pride, only seen in Singapore during National Day.
We headed back to Happy Ark and had a final
debriefing by Diana and Martin. All in all, in 3 days we were able to screen
1612 kids in total (AMAZING!!!!). So here are some take away pointers from the
2nd leg of our trip.
1)
In different settings, the
predominant morbidity amongst the general population would be different
2)
Tooth decay is really really
very common amongst kids
3)
Health education is really
important. Start teaching while they are still young
4)
Lifestyle changes (primary
prevention) is the most effective way of reducing morbidity rates
5)
Tonsillitis is a very common
condition amongst kids
6)
Be sensitive when visiting a
family of another culture
7)
We should be grateful for the
luxuries that we have in life
8)
Don’t put your stations 5m in
front of the school toilet, the stench would burn off your nose hair
9)
Kindergarden kids are really
cute but really terrifying sometimes
So we ended our trip officially by going to
a KTV lounge, singing our hearts out and celebrating Wong Jia Hao’s birthday
when it hit midnight (11/12/14), happy birthday Bossman! Although the trip had
officially come to an end, doesn’t mean the blog posts haveJ so stay tuned for more blog post!
All in all this was a really memorable trip
J