US volunteer to serve in Sudan for MTI
For the first time in 20 months, Medical Teams International will send a volunteer to Darfur, Sudan. The tenuous security situation and increased violence over the past two years have severely hampered attempts from the humanitarian community to reach millions of displaced individuals. But recently, violence has decreased, and the Sudanese government has permitted foreign aid workers into the country on a limited basis. Jon Bird, a physician from Missouri, will arrive in Sudan on April 10—the first Medical Teams International volunteer to serve since 2005.
Volunteer physician a veteran of medical missions
As medical director for two rural emergency rooms and the veteran of 18 medical missions to countries like Uganda, Kenya, Honduras and Indonesia, Bird is ready for the complex humanitarian disaster that awaits him in Darfur.
“I feel like I was born to do this type of work,” he says. “When I studied in medical school, I dreamed of being able to provide this type of medical service.”
When Bird ran his private family practice for 13 years, he didn’t have the flexibility [that] he has as an emergency room doctor. “One of the best parts about my current position is that I can fly overseas for a month-long medical mission and serve the people of Sudan, without having to worry about a practice back home,” he says.
Bird’s responsibility in Sudan is two-fold: He will provide a combination of direct medical care for patients at the Um Tagouk and Sanidadi clinics, and will also help train local health care providers from the Sudan Ministry of Health.
According to Wendy Dyment, M.D., the emergency medical specialist at Medical Teams International, Bird will treat people suffering from malnutrition, anemia, malaria, bacterial infections, worms and diarrhea—many of the same illnesses [that] he saw when he served with us [MTI] in northern Uganda, in March 2006.
"The necessity to leave things undone"
Delivering direct medical care in the developing world has its challenges. Instead of a doctor’s office filled with supplies, equipment, an exam table and a lab that returns results within a day or two, health professionals usually have a tent as their exam room, a plastic chair for their exam table, and access only to limited medications. X-rays, cultures, lab work and stool tests are not part of the medical routine in places like Sudan, Uganda and Liberia.
“They don’t have all the medicines we have in the west,” Bird says. “The lack of medicine is usually the limiting reagent. Fortunately, MAP International provides all of the medications that Medical Teams International needs at the health clinics."
When Bird first started working as a medical volunteer overseas, he worried that his biggest challenge would be getting the diagnosis correct and prescribing the right medication. "I could only rely on my medical experience and my ability to perform a physical exam, since developing countries do not have the modern equipment that we have in the US,” he says.
But 18 medical missions later, "The biggest challenge I face is the necessity to leave things undone.
"When the daylight begins to fade, and we have to leave, there are always people still waiting to be seen. They’ve waited all day, not raising a fuss, letting the sicker people go first. And they don’t know when we’ll return...if we’ll ever return," says Bird.
Psychological challenges in a war zone
Physical illnesses are not the only [conditions] often overlooked during an ongoing disaster like Sudan. The psychological trauma [that] people have experienced often affects—or even causes—the physical problems.
Bird saw many people with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the internally displaced people camps in Uganda. “PTSD can manifest itself in a variety of ways,” Bird says, “including abject depression, insomnia, nervousness, irritability, vomiting, gastrointestinal pain, and the stressful situation of replaying the trauma in their minds. I expect [that] I’ll see a lot of people suffering from physical pain because of a psychological trauma they have experienced,” he says.
Bird will do the best he can to help them: prescribing a safe, short-term antidepressant, along with an anxiety-reducing non-addictive medicine, and asking the patient to follow up with the next team.
The risk is great, but the need is greater
Bird is looking forward to the opportunity to provide and share his medical expertise with the people in Darfur. He understands the risk to himself, but speaks with passion about becoming a sharp instrument in God’s hands.
As a Christian, Bird says, “I don’t ultimately fear for my existence in this world or beyond. I realize that we are all somewhat terminal on this earth, and I have no qualms about my eternal security. If this is where I can best serve God, I would be better off doing that in a risky situation than sitting at home just because of a fear that I have…. Because the future is really not up to us anyway.”
“It takes a very special individual to serve in Darfur—one who excels in the practice of medicine, is capable of being incredibly flexible in a volatile environment, culturally sensitive, physically able and passionate,” says Tammy Teske, disaster response project officer at Medical Teams International. “Jon is this person. He embraces the inevitable challenges with enthusiasm, flexibility and peace. We are honored to have him serve as an ambassador for Medical Teams International in Darfur.”
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