MORE FROM McPATCHES

Chapter 3 McPatches teaches us about life in Kapuna, a small hospital in a remote part of the southern Papua New Guinea jungle.

On the way home I stopped off to have a look at the jetty. It was low tide so all the canoes where resting on the mud. But when the tide comes up they’ll all be floating again. The people put long sticks on each side of them to stop them from floating away when the tide rises. These canoes are how the people get to hospital. Sometimes people have to travel for 2 whole days rowing down the river to get help because there are no roads here and some of the villages are far away.

Compare how people get to hospital in Kapuna with how New Zealand people get to hospital.   Did you know that in the Kapuna Hospital the patients are looked after the patient, while the medical staff look after the medical needs?  

Look at the canoes in the background.  What are they made of?  How many people would be needed to power it?  McPatches has some grey patches - could that be mud? Look at the plant life around the canoes .... how muddy is it?

Why is the wharf such an important to the hospital and villages as part of their  transportation infrastructure?