New Year plans

New Year’s Eve was spent working the night shift so I didn’t get a chance to see the Sibu New Year’s fireworks display. Apparently they have it every year. It didn’t turn out as bad as I had expected although the first yellow zone case of the year for me was an old lady complaining of being “unable to sleep”... it’s those people partying love, it is the New Year.

Over the past 2 weeks of working in the emergency department, we have been getting quite a lot of cases coming in from the surrounding areas. Saratok, Sarikei, Daro, Kanowit – to name a few. However, apparently the absolute worst place to be in according to Faridah is Kapit. Well, seeing how it takes about 3-4 hours for cases to actually arrive from Kapit, the place must be really “rural”.

“Access is by speed boat. So the last case that you can refer is around 4 p.m because after that the express boats will not depart anymore. It’s too dangerous to navigate the river in the dark,”

“But what if you have some RTA (they don’t call it MVA here, hell the whole rest of the world don’t call it MVA. Semenanjung people are weird...) with ICB, or intra abdominal injury?” I asked.

“You have to bear with it until the next morning I guess,”

At that moment a realisation became firmly implanted in my head – the doctors there are proper hardcore.

We once had an open book fracture arrive from Kapit. In place of what I expected there to be a hip immobilizer was a bed sheet wrapped around the guy’s hip.

“What’s a hip immobilizer? I’ve never seen one,” Faridah makes me sound so pampered by the equipment that we had in Klang Valley.

“Once I had to transport a guy via helicopter to Kuching in the driving rain. Made me wanna puke. The pilot didn’t seem to know what he was doing. I was sure the helicopter wasn’t flying straight for the most part. I thought to myself – no more am I doing this,” she told me once. “But my friend had it worse though. His patient self extubated in the helicopter in the driving rain on the way to Kuching. Had to bag all the way coz there was no way he could’ve intubated in the helicopter,”

Damn it, even the HOs here are hardcore. And I was bitchin about how the ambulance drivers in Kajang were endangering my life by their driving....

So, after hearing all these stories about the other hospitals in the surrounding area, I thought to myself that I HAD to find out where exactly is this Kapit place. On Google map it’s just a dot in the middle of the jungle. I wondered how it would be like to transport a patient on a boat down the Rajang and how far exactly is the place.

Therefore on New Year’s day, right after my night shift, I took a shower, changed into something more comfortable, grabbed my camera, and caught the next bus to docks...

I’ll continue this tomorrow, I’m too sleepy now...