More Singapore doctors are taking time off to save lives in the Third World. Vivien Sham finds out more.
Peering through a microscope, eye surgeon Shamira Perera carefully makes an incision in a patient’s eye and extracts a thick, clouded cataract. He then inserts an artificial lens. After a few hours, the patient can see clearly again.
A few metres away, long queues of low-skilled workers wait for a life-changing surgery they cannot afford, but made possible when the 38-year-old ophthalmologist from Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC) took time off to volunteer at a Myanmar hospital.
Like Dr Perera, more Singapore doctors are joining voluntary mission trips, bringing more advanced surgical techniques to needy patients in countries such as the Philippines, Cambodia and China. These trips are also better organised than a few years ago.
Volunteer missions are very popular in places where advanced medical services, such as surgery, are not widely available.
“When we went to Yunnan three years ago, the medical team comprised barely eight staff,” said Dr Stephanie Young, a 28-year-old ophthalmologist from the National University Hospital (NUH) active on such trips.
Three years later, Dr Young’s team had 18 people, higher-tech instruments and operating microscopes for a cataract removal mission trip to the Chinese city of Xining.
Mission trips are warmly welcomed in neighbouring countries where such surgical services are not so easily available.
“Operations are the biggest draw for patients,” said Dr Helen Isaac, a practitioner who volunteers regularly on medical missions. The 44-year-old feels that the free consultations and medicines provided there provide only fleeting benefits.
The success of the pioneer small-scale projects has generated excitement in the medical community, with more sponsors and medical professionals wanting to contribute and participate.
For Dr Young’s Xining project, it gained visibility through the media and word-of-mouth.
“The pharmaceutical department of NUH came forward with antibiotics, a lens company donated intraocular lens, and other hospitals loaned us their equipment,” said Dr Young.
A volunteer doctor at a clinic in China.
The field of general surgery in volunteer missions, likewise, is starting to pick up and more doctors are forming medical teams to go abroad and operate on low-risk cases like hernias and tumours.
In the past, most volunteer doctors in general surgery worked independently. This changed when Dr Anthony Than, 39, a general surgeon from NUH, founded Project SOUL (Surgical Outreach for Underprivileged Localities) in 2009.
Under Dr Than’s project, surgeons formed a team to provide general surgical services to rural areas lacking in medical amenities.
Doctors invest heavily, often with their own time and resources, into organising and planning these overseas trips. For Dr Loon Seng Chee, head of the Xining project, a lot remains to be done even after returning to Singapore.
“I’m already doing the stock-taking and emailing the local Bangladeshi doctors about the next trip in December,” said the the outreach director for medical missions for National University Health System (NUHS).
However, there are factors preventing Singapore doctors from heading to developing countries.
Dr Loon even had to turn down some who wanted to join.
“I only need a core team of medical personnel who would then take on additional responsibilities like crowd control,” said the consultant ophthalmologist from NUH. “Doctors outside ophthalmology cannot help much during the mission trip.”
Back in 2007, Dr Perera was already keen on making the Myanmar trip but the birth of his child made him delay his mission trip plans till last year.
Dr Joel Aduan, 35, ophthalmologist at NUH, volunteers for local eye screenings but said: “I’ve never gone on such trips as they are more time-consuming and I’ve got other commitments.”
Doctors in private practice also forfeit some earnings when they stop business to go overseas. Dr Cheong, who works in Gleneagles Medical Centre, said: “There is an opportunity cost in going for these trips. Even if the clinic is not open, I still have to pay rent.”
Conditions are less than ideal on these missions and doctors have to adapt to the unexpected, such as electricity cut-offs and even snow storms blocking patients’ access to clinics.
Despite these challenges, doctors are going back for more.
Dr Cheong, who has gone on cataract missions trips once every six months in recent years, declares it is “not all about money” and enjoys seeing the world off the beaten path.
Cataracts remain the leading cause of blindness in low-income countries and we are fulfilling a real need, she added.
Dr Than, the Project SOUL founder, said that Singaporeans see treatment like “paying $5 for a burger, and that’s it.”
In contrast, on these mission trips, patients and their families are happy and grateful.
“It becomes a two-way exchange of us providing services and them giving us the professional satisfaction of being a doctor,” said Dr Than.
This edited article was written as an assignment for the News Writing and Reporting module at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University.
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