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My colleagues used to tell me things about flying with helicopters; that they're frightened of bad weather and other things
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But I'm motivated to do it and feel challenged
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Way before I returned to Papua, I had a dream
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that some day I would become a doctor who flies all over to remote areas.
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And that dream came true.
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Pearl in the Noken
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I joined the Baliem Mission Centre (BMC
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In the organizational structure, I'm the medical manager.
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We have a bimonthly schedule.
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We visit some areas that are already under BMC's purview and try to expand to another.
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First, we go North
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To the Kaimana area.
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There we'll find Esrotnaba lake.
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It's the center for our services. And second, to the South, the Korowai area.
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We have strong relations with Helivida.
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Helivida is an organization that serves and helps all of Papua's remote areas.
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In one of my trips, I flew with a Helivida pilot, Pilot Erwin
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We were flying at around 12 noon
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Because there was an emergency medivac (Medical Evacuation) mission to one of the small villages
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near the border of Oksibil and Boven Digul
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It's about 2 hours and 20 minutes from Wamena.
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And the trip to Boven Digul requires passing a mountanious area near Kurima, Iberoma, Tama, and there are strong winds there
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Suddenly, many clouds blew in and covered this mountainous area, so we couldn't see anything
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And we couldn't flew any higher.
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So we followed the river of Baliem, followed it up, but it was raining heavily.
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I stayed quiet. Then the pilot said,
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"Doctor Mia, please do not worry because we need to thank God for giving us this heavy rain
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That means I don't have to clean this chopper anymore.
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because God is cleaning it from heaven.
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Yes, immediately my stressed disappeared.
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Everyday, I'm working at the hospital and if suddenly there's a medivac calling from Helivida
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I have to be on stand-by.
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And at any time, whether it's good weather or bad, if there's a medivac calling
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if there's a pilot ready, I need to get ready to fly to evacuate patients.
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Mum, here mum.
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He and I were nurses
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Who helped patients
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up in remote areas
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even in the remote areas
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where people are afraid to enter.
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But he and I,
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we have given our all to serve these people
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I get my spirit from my parents.
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Ever since I was a child, there was always a request for my father at my house to conduct operations
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He had to travel from night until morning, often without rest.
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If there was a patient who needed an operation from a doctor, and the doctor called him, he needed to leave to be an assistant for the doctor
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Besides these complicated operations, there was often a medivac from the MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship).
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He went straight away and left us for days
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So here's a community, they've gathered so I can conduct an examination.
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I've given them basic immunization.
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I stayed and worked there.
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This is the local medical center where I worked for them.
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It's from the old days, so only black and white, not colour like mine.
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There was a journey from Karumbaga to Bokondini, that's far.
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It's quite far.
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So we needed to put Mia inside of a noken (cloth to carry a child).
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Because she's still so small.
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If she's thirsty,
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I need to put her down and feed her some milk
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and then continue to walk.
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We put her in a noken, and we climbed a mountain.
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It was hard to carry her on the shoulder.
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To climb, it's difficult. And the path was full of trees.
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So many trees hit our heads, and many other things.
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So we couldn't move fast.
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But with the Noken, we can walk fast.
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Even when we climb up a mountain, we can hold on to a root. Easy, right?
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I have an interesting story from when I was working in 2009 in Wamena, and began to work in the Emergency Hospital there
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Suddenly a fight occurred between some tribes.
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And many of these victims were carried to the Emergency Hospital in Wamena.
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A senior nurse came and just touched my head like this
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Yes, I understood what it meant.
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She just held and touched my head like this. It means that she has once carried me in her Noken
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And that her head had once carried me.
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I need to return all the kindness that's been given to me by my sisters and brothers, who I call the hands of God.
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Money will never be enough.
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I must return all the kindness and love that they've given to me.
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I'm giving it back to all the people I've ever treated.
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I don't have any passion to start my own medical business,
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to make money from my patients
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just to take care of my own welfare. No!
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For me, a doctor is a healer. That's all.
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