24,000 Tiny Blessings - The Paracetamol Miracle - 20 Jan 2014

What happens when a hospital in the jungle runs out of paracetamol?

"Within twelve hours I had messages from 45 people in 11 countries...

                              ...telling me they were praying"

Here's a testimony of prayer from Papua New Guinea that blew us away...

Being able to get paracetamol was something I’ve always taken for granted. Back in the UK it can be bought for 20 pence from almost any supermarket. As a doctor both in hospital and the community, it’s the medicine I prescribe above any other as the basic first-line treatment for pain and fever. Never before had I considered what I might do if I didn’t have it.

But then I came to PNG...

                       

I knew that working in a rural bush hospital I wouldn’t have the same supplies and resources that I had back in England. I have got used to “making do”, and finding alternatives, and doing the best I possibly can with what we have. It’s far from perfect, but we do what we can, and continue to strive for better.

But what happens when we don’t have even the most basic of supplies? What good is my knowledge as a doctor if I have no medicines with which to treat the conditions I am diagnosing?

What happens when a hospital in the jungle runs out of paracetamol?

That’s what happened this week…. Almost. We had placed an order for medicines many months ago. But nothing had come. So we waited. But still it didn’t come. We chased up the drug store in the capital which was meant to be sending us our medicines. But still it didn’t come. No-one knew where it was. And no-one could be found to do anything about it.

And all the while our supplies were getting lower and lower and lower…
 
Our biggest need was simple painkillers. Last week we were down to the last three bottles for a hospital of 100 patients. And then the last two bottles  left being eked out for the “most deserving” patients. Amongst those who “qualified” were a lady with a broken spine due to TB, and a patient with cancer.  In the UK both patients would likely have been on morphine, whereas here they were the privileged ones having the last few paracetamol.

It was desperate. And I was fed up.

I was so fed up with it I was actually angry. Here I am as a doctor, and yet  my patients were suffering in pain and I could do nothing about it. By the following day we would have run out of paracetamol, and our drug order was still lost somewhere between Moresby and outer space. I was desperate. I normally really dislike facebook being used as a platform for everyone to vent their grievances to the world, but that evening I had no-one else to scream at, so screamed at a computer screen. This was the post from that evening, 10th January:

“Well facebook, do you really want to know what’s on my mind?? I’m pissed off. Like proper pissed off. We have two bottles of paracetamol left for the entire hospital. We have four extremely sick patients and our strongest antibiotics have run out. Our latest drug order from four months ago is still missing in transit, with no hint as to when we may get more supplies. And the government has given over the next three years drug contract to a company who have been proven to sell substandard and counterfeit drugs, causing AusAid to withdraw funding to help bring us our medical supplies. Stay out the way…I’m about to scream at someone. You have been warned.”

Within twelve hours I had messages from 45 people in 11 countries around the world, telling me they were praying, with at least 12 churches/groups praying also. I was touched that so many people cared, but was still in a pretty bad mood and didn’t really have much faith that anything would change. I’m very grateful that everyone else had the faith for me, because early on Sunday morning, 36 hours after I vented my frustrations to the world, a ship came past Kapuna. This part of PNG is only accessible by river, with main transportation being by dugout canoe. The sound of a large engine caught the attention of everyone all over the village. What is a ship doing here today?? Especially on a Sunday?

The engine stopped. Boxes started being unloaded. And they kept coming. 36 boxes in total, piled into our scanty drug store. I was like a child on Christmas morning opening those boxes, shrieking with delight as we pulled out much needed supplies. One box opened, and we discovered eight huge bottles of 1000 paracetamol. Incredible! But that wasn’t all… the next box had the same again, and the next! 24,000  paracetamol, plus hundreds of bottles of kid’s paracetamol and many other much needed painkillers and other supplies. Then I realised this wasn’t what we had ordered. Where had this come from?

            

Turned out that this was just a generic shipment sent out to all PNG health centres once or twice a year. Which “just happened” to arrive the day we had nothing left. Which “coincidently” turned up after hundreds of people prayed. A couple of thousand paracetamol would have been enough to see us through until our order turned up, but no, God is a God who “by His mighty power at work… is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope” (Eph 3:20). Even when I don’t have the faith to believe it. Even when I’m at my wit’s end and am relying everyone else’s prayers.

And just to top it off, our actual drug order with everything else we needed turned up three days later. Someone quipped “that’s the power of facebook”. I disagree. That’s the power of God!

Read more of Beth’s amazing stories on her blog 

After the ‘Paracetamol Miracle’, she tells of how a paralysed man was miraculously healed a week later.

It’s awesome stuff