Band-Aid for a Broken Leg: Being a Doctor with No Borders

300 Pages·2013·4.34 MB·English

by  Damien Brown

Damien Brown is an Australian doctor based in Melbourne. He began writing
seriously after his last humanitarian posting, encouraged by readers of a blog he
kept while working for Médecins Sans Frontières in Africa. This is Damien’s
first book.
BAND-AID FOR A BROKEN LEG
BAND-AID FOR A BROKEN LEG
BEING A DOCTOR WITH NO BORDERS
(AND OTHER WAYS TO STAY SINGLE)
DAMIEN BROWN
First published in Australia in 2012
Copyright © Damien Brown 2012
Text design by Lisa White All photographs by Damien Brown Maps by Brittany Britten All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
prior permission in writing from the publisher.
The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book,
whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes
provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to
Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
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ISBN 978 1 74331 021 2
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Dedicated to all those whose stories fill these pages.
‘Here, it is like this . . .’—Dominga, our Angolan cook
CONTENTS
Author’s note
Maps
Africa
Mavinga compounds
Mavinga township
Nasir
1 The Edge of the World
2 The First Dance
3 O Novo Doctor
4 Confusão
5 Testimonials
6 Mavinga is Different
7 Bargaining for Body Parts
8 Fighting Cubans
9 What Appendix?
10 Sleeping Easy
11 Memorable Lines
12 Watching Storms
13 Guidelines for Abduction
14 Net Fishing on the Zambezi
15 Shooting Down the Runway
16 Evacuation
17 Week from Hell
18 Airborne Reminders
19 An Angry Clan
20 The Assassin
21 Catfish and Cow Dung
22 How You Gettin’ Home?
Selected Reading
Acknowledgements
AUTHOR’S NOTE
All incidents described in this book are true. The names of patients have been
changed to protect their confidentiality, but many of the names of staff have been
left unaltered. Like Toyota, for example. I couldn’t have come up with a name
like that—not for a person.
This book was written in the months after the events took place, and as such
all dialogue has been recreated to the best of my memory. Any errors or
misquotations that could be attributed to characters in this book are purely mine,
and mine alone. I bear full responsibility for any and all inaccuracies. While
editorial constraints have meant that some minor scenes have been compressed,
or combined, this was never done to alter the integrity of the account as a whole.
At the time of writing, I had no association with Médecins Sans Frontières,
and it had no editorial input. My respect for the organisation remains high, but I
hope this book will be seen neither as a specific endorsement of any one
organisation, nor as a rebuke, but rather as what it was intended to be—a story
about people, and of the difficult conditions they happen to live in.
AFRICA
(SELECTED COUNTRIES SHOWN)
THIS MAP WAS CORRECT AT THE TIME THE AUTHOR WAS IN THE REGION. IN JULY 2011,
FOLLOWING A REFERENDUM, SOUTH SUDAN WAS GRANTED INDEPENDENCE, DIVIDING
SUDAN INTO TWO SEPARATE NATIONS.