2014巴布亞紐幾內亞行動醫療團心得--血液腫瘤科 林正純醫師
I am fortune enough to have an opportunity to join the Medical Team to PNG this time. I am an Hematologist-Oncologist and therefore I have been working and staying in the National Cancer Service at Angau Memorial Hospital in Lae， PNG. I am surprised to see the staff here work so hard， but because of lack of resource， they could not do high quality cancer treatment like us in Taiwan or in the US. The patients here suffer from all kind of cancer and spread all over the country. There is only one Co-60 Radiotherapy machine in the country and it is located at Angau Memorial Hospital. Therefore for patients that need radiotherapy like， oral cancer， breast cancer and cervical cancer， they all need to come here for further therapy.The schedule is full and the patient cannot get in time adequate treatment. The pathology reports are slow and adequate diagnosis cannot be made and this greatly decreased the cancer patient’s survival. The ward was dirty and no isolation rooms available and no privacy at all. The hygiene is bad and the ward building is old and dirty. In addition， not enough resources for adequate cancer treatment， such as target therapy and the latest medicine that might improve patient’s outcome. There is no adequate image and pathological reports that came in in time. The patients get poor treatment and with only old drugs for all subtypes of cancers. Although the cancer center will be remodeled， the man power and the qualified staff to support high quality care treatment are still lacking. This is in contrast to our health care in Taiwan which is high quality and is comparable to that of US and West Europe.
The patients here are very friendly and the staffs all work very hard to achieve certain degree of basic cancer treatment. However I think our healthcare system is among one of the best in the world. In contrast， there are still a lot to improve the Angau Memorial Hospital. To covert this hospital into more modernized hospital， it requires a lot to do and more funding and man power need to be trained and more equipment need to be established. It is a matter of time as long as it get help from people like our medical teams and as long as there is determination， An Gao Memorial Hospital will be better than what it is now will not be a dream.In summary， the trip to PNG is quite an unusual experience for me and I will do my best to improve our cancer patients in Taiwan and if possible， is willing to go to， due to lack of good resource， it is difficult to get better treatment in modern standards. The medical team consists of members from different areas of specialties and is getting along very well. The team leader has done a tremendous work in organizing the daily activity and the aid is also very smart and hard to organize the team activity. The medical team has be
en working very hard to have our activities fitting into the hospital schedules and to provide better support during this short period of time. I believe the more of this kind of medical team working in other countries， there will be more benefits to our country’s reputation and better served underdeveloped countries or areas to help cancer patients there. This kind of Medical Teams overseas should deserve further support in the future.