Pediatric Care doctor shows his steel in Mozambique

WHITE RIVER –

WHITE RIVER – Where to find a little lamb between the Mozambican border and Chimoio – this is the question that keeps Dr André Hattingh of Pediatric Care Africa awake while he prepares to take another 30 tons of food and medicine to the cyclone-stricken area.

The same doctor’s eyes become soft when he talks about a chicken he once received from an appreciating patient and a very special song composed for him by another.

This week Lowvelder learned why these seemingly trivial things occupy the mind of a retired surgeon with a PhD in neuroscience and years of experience gained all over the world.

We also heard more about his role in the relief work after Cyclone Idai.

When Hattingh heard reports of category four weather conditions approaching Mozambique, he knew that he had to go and provide care for the children as part of the mandate of Pediatric Care Africa.

READ: My journey to the aftermath of Cyclone Idai

With his faithful Land Cruiser bakkie loaded with appropriate foodstuffs, he set out on the two-and-a-half day drive to Beira on his own, to join other rescue missions. Disaster – and fate – struck, however, when he got stuck near the little village of Inchope, about a 100 kilometres from Beira. He soon realised that he was the first to tend to that area.

“There was nothing left of the village,” he said. “About 200 000 people were devastated, their harvest gone, mud huts demolished and goats and chickens had drowned.” An orphanage had lost its roof and  eight seriously injured patients were hiding under a tarpaulin, their injuries caused by walls collapsing and roof sheeting flying around in the gusts of wind.

A 19-year-old girl had a fractured pelvis, a 17-year-old child suffered from a femur fracture and an adult man suffered severe arm pain caused by pinched nerves.

“But doctors don’t save lives – money, equipment and supplies do,” Hattingh expressed his desperation about the situation. “Fortunately we heard that neighbouring Chimoio miraculously escaped the fury of the cyclone, so we transformed the Land Cruiser into a temporary ambulance to transport five patients there.”

To their relief Chimoio had water, electricity and even diesel. The hospital there was fairly equipped. With approval from the Mozambican medical board, he assisted a local orthopaedist to repair the woman’s fractured pelvis and in other operations.

In Chimoio he found a little girl crying incessantly about the loss of her little pet lamb. “On the spur of the moment, I promised to bring her one!” he said, regrettably.

Now back in South Africa he is collecting the 30 tons of food and needs to raise funds to purchase medicine in Mozambique. “It saves red tape to buy it there,” he explained the need for money rather than the medicine itself.

His target area is currently unreachable and hundreds of thousands of people shut out from other relief rescue teams. “Cholera is unavoidable under these circumstances,” Hattingh said with despair. “Their natural water sources, rivers and wells are either washed away or contaminated and hand pumps gone. No words can describe such devastation – the smell, the damage, even the atmosphere of terror.”

As soon as the road between Inchope and Beira has been restored, he will return.

Aiding in such circumstances is not new to Hattingh. He had his first such experience with relief work as part of a UN mission in Rwanda’s genocide. “There I saw the difference we made in people’s lives and  Africa was calling me,” said the man, who grew up in the Western Transvaal but obtained a scholarship at the University of California, Los Angeles in the USA, where he qualified as a medical doctor and surgeon.

Also Read: Idai: Só kan Laevelders help

He started his African adventure in Zambia, moved to Malawi and later Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo where he spent nine years. It was there where a mother walked kilometres to bring him a chicken in appreciation and an albino artist wrote a song about his hero doctor.

After retirement he settled near White River, from where he launched Pediatric Care Africa.

“But I actually did not work for one day during my life. Every day was a blessing,” said the man who now faces the tricky challenge to find that little lamb on his way to Beira.