Northern Medical Flights

When we first came to Botswana, the flying we did was medical evacuations / patient transfers for the Ministry of Health. We had a twin engine King Air, complete with two fully trained paramedics and all of the life saving equipment they would need. The Medics handled the patient and all of their care. Everything seemed quite calm and professional.

Today I had my first northern medical flight, with our little single engine Cessna 207. There were no paramedics,and only a stretcher in the airplane, although a nurse from the clinic accompanied the patient. We went to Seronga today, the one village that we regularly do medical flights for, from our Maun base. The patient had a broken leg, and it would seem that rudimentary care was administered in the form of basic first aid (strips of cloth tied around rough wooden splints). It made me realize that what we do here in Maun is very important to the people of Seronga. We transported the patient to Gumare, a village with a larger clinic, where she could be assessed, and receive treatment. Without the medical flight, the journey to a larger clinic would have taken much longer. The 20 minute plane ride takes the place of several hours of travel by boat and truck. (Sometimes the patient will later be transported by our King Air to the Francistown hospital, if the Gumare clinic determines that this is required).