March Activities
Nick and James spent two weeks in Vanuatu from March 3 to 16. They had meetings with both government and church leaders during that time. Included were meetings with Dr Tim Vocor, the Acting Director General of Health, staff of both Vila Central Hospital, staff of Northern District Hospital in Luganville, the Acting District Health Manager of TORBA, the Secretary of TORBA Province, and Pr John Lehman, the Director of the SDA Mission in Vila. The updates to the Memorandum of Understanding for 2009 were presented and documents signed by all parties involved. At that stage it had been planned that two vessels would be operating in Vanuatu this year. Windango would be working for the full season and a second vessel through June and July only. The two weeks went smoothly. PYM’s work is well known now. At each meeting the two representatives were received warmly by all officials, and few explanations were required as to why they were there, and the business concerning this year’s activities was processed easily.
A lot of time was spent working on arrangements for Lorian to come to Australia for treatment. Lorian and her Dad, Amfrey were at Northern District Hospital waiting for approval to be gained. Unfortunately much of the paperwork required by Australian Immigration had not been processed. Nick and James found the lady handling her case in the Australia High Commission in Vila to be very helpful. With her assistance and the support of Dr Wari, the Director of Medical Services at NDH, most of the forms required were completed in the two weeks. With those done it was hoped that Lorian would soon be able to come to Australia. While there is an Australian High Commission in Vila, all Medical Visa Applications are processed through Fiji. This complicates matters as the people making the decisions are remote from the area a patient is from, and have little understanding of the difficulties in obtaining much of the data required on the forms.