Bulletin

Issue: August 2005

News

Helping hand for a little ray of sunshine

Little Shirley Yapea from isolated Mondo Ando village, five hours by four-wheel drive from Goroka in the Papua New Guinea Highlands, now has a chance of a normal life.

But until La Trobe University lecturer in Nursing and Midwifery, Ms Nola Aicken, met her in May 2004, Shirley faced a life of pain, seriously impaired movement, and social ostracism.

Reduced mobility in the PNG Highlands, where most people walk everywhere and work on their feet, means social stigma and poverty.

Ms Aicken, from the Bendigo Campus, who was spending two weeks with a volunteer team of midwives at the Goroka Hospital, found Shirley, aged 10, the only child in a crowded adult surgical ward.

'It was very much a third-world hospital ward. Amid the decay, death, and ambience of hopelessness, I saw a little girl sitting on her bed, smiling. Among the desolation she was little ray of sunshine,' said Ms Aicken. 'It was the following day when I visited her again, that I fully realised her plight. She was not covered with a sheet and I saw the severe burns to her lower limbs.

Shockingly burned in January that year from a kerosene spill that had set fire to her nylon clothes, she had been given little chance of pulling through. Despite the lack of antibiotics, pain relief and appropriate dressings, Shirley survived against all odds. Ms Aicken decided Shirley needed better treatment, and when she returned to Australia, contacted Rotary.

Rotary clubs in Goroka and Bendigo responded and, with the assistance of Rotary Medical Aid for Children, Shirley's fare to Australia was raised and Ms Aicken arranged for her admission to St John of God Hospital, Bendigo, where medical staff donated their services.

When Shirley arrived in Bendigo in early in May she could barely move because of three open wounds on her legs. Two weeks later she underwent a major operation and skin grafts.

'She is now walking normally,' said Ms Aicken. 'Although she still has considerable scarring, she has the chance to lead a normal life, thanks to the help of so many generous people.' Shirley returned to Papua New Guinea at the end of July with her aunt who had accompanied her to Australia.