Page 17 of Prognosis So Done

CHAPTER SEVEN - 1300 HOURS

The two surgical teamsleft the building together and walked across to the medical building. Once a week, providing they weren’t in the middle of surgery, the surgical and medical teams joined together and ran an immunisation clinic.

Most of the countries MedSurg serviced had very low levels of childhood immunisation. Part of the organisation’s directive was mass vaccination, and they employed people in the field, working in partnership with the World Health Organisation to co-ordinate local vaccination programmes.

Yellow fever, a potentially fatal mosquito-borne illness, was prevalent in this particular area, and the teams had been tasked to immunise as many locals as was possible during their stay. Thanks to the field operatives, there were usually hundreds of men, women and children lining up for their shots at the weekly clinics. Therefore it was all hands on deck.

Some of the surgical teams grumbled about it but Harriet quite liked it. It got them out amongst the local people, instead of staying cloistered inside the same sets of walls for two months. They could become very insulated inside and it was nice to think they were doing something proactive for once, instead of reactive.

The idea of public health had always been attractive to Harriet. Yes, she enjoyed her work, enjoyed being a theatre nurse, but if she was totally honest, Gill had been the reason she’d stuck with it for so long. She’d always loved developing rapport with her patients and, as Harriet walked in the heat, she thought this was an area of nursing she might explore now she was leaving MedSurg.

Several tents had been set up outside the medical building under the shade of the few remaining trees that existed in the dust bowl that surrounded them. They were big and looked as old as the buildings themselves, and were obviously very hardy to have survived when other greenery had long ago succumbed to the arid heat.

The clinic was just getting under way as the team arrived.

‘So pleased you could join us,’ said Dr Kelly Prentice, grinning eagerly at her recruits as she swatted away the ever-present flies. She was a petite African American woman with a New York twang. ‘Pull up a pew. You know the routine.’

Between each chair was a small table with a supply of the vaccine and a box of gloves, and on the other side a sharps

bin. Out of habit Harriet sat down at next to Gill and then spent a moment dithering about whether she should have or not.

Helmut sat on the other side and smiled at her as he said, ‘Bet I can do more than you.’

Harriet rolled his eyes and forgot her dithering. ‘This isn’t a race, Helmut.’

‘Whatever you say,’ he said on a laugh and greeted his first customer.

––––––––

Gill looked up fromhis work at the teeming mass of humanity waiting patiently in line, an array of colourful fabrics dazzling the eye. The crowd was as big as usual, about six or seven hundred at a guess, but he knew from past experience that with twenty health-care professionals administering the vaccine, it’d be all over in an hour.

He tried to concentrate on his work. But with thoughts of his grandfather and with Harriet in his peripheral vision, talking and trying to make the children laugh as she worked, he was failing badly. She was a natural with the kids and had their shy, serious expressions erased in a flash, replaced with big white grins.

He had heard Helmut’s challenge and knew he would win easily because being fast wasn’t Harriet’s style. It wasn’t that she wasn’t efficient, she just thrived on making a connection, taking some time to make her patients feel like individuals.

She looked up at him and caught him staring. He smiled at her and she smiled back as she flapped at some flies. She was glowing - in her element - despite the heat and the flies, as she turned back to a little girl who was shyly showing her a raggedy old toy that had seen better days.

Gill continued to work through his line, smiling at every patient, wondering what the hell must be going through their heads. The things these people had lived through and seen. They took their needles stoically - even the children.

What was one tiny needle compared with a horrific civil war? Compared to having no food in your belly or your house burnt to the ground or your parents killed? Compared to dying from yellow fever, as so many of their countrymen did?

No. There were no hysterics here. No cajoling kids and bribing them with ice creams and sweets, like back at home.

Just a resigned silence, a calm acceptance.

Someone down the line, a woman, began to sing a tribal tune and others joined in, and suddenly the lines were swaying to the rhythm. It was like listening to ancient music being sung by a gospel choir in a foreign tongue and Gill marvelled at the pride and resilience of these people.

They were standing in the dirt, their feet bare, the sun beating down relentlessly, in a place torn apart by war, and yet they could still sing. They could still rejoice.

He smiled at a beaming Harriet who was also getting into the groove. There was something indomitable and defiant about these voices raised in song. A message.

This is our home. We will endure.

Gill felt a pang hit him in the chest and ripple outwards. Maybe it was his grandfather, maybe it was saying goodbye to Harriet, maybe there was magic in this music, but listening to this tribal tempo which seemed to be coming from the very earth beneath his feet, he had a strong urge to go home.

To ground himself.

He turned to look at Harriet as he absently brushed some flies from his face and he felt the ripples intensify. She sat on her chair in her scrubs, talking to a mother while she nursed a baby on her lap. The babe had its head snuggled into Harriet’s breast and tiny fingers wrapped around Harriet’s index finger.

---