HELPING LITTLE CHILDREN WHO SUFFER FROM HYDROCEPHALUS

 

Mount Wilhelm, locally known as Enduwa Kombuglu.

Picture courtesy of EDWIN WAWU

CONQUERING MOUNT WILHELM FOR THE SICK CHILDREN of PNG

 

Dr Arnold Waine and his daughter Kelesi Waine after reaching the summit of Mt Wilhelm on Christmas Eve, 2023.

SEATED on the rocky crag that is the roof of PNG, Arnold Waine looked into the far distance. His gaze was limited by the chilly fog that hung in the air.

But that did not dampen his enthusiasm for the reason why he was sitting on the top of the 4509-meter-high Mount Wilhelm, Papua New Guinea’s highest peak. (14, 793 feet)

He was there for a simple reason. He was there for the little suffering children he saw every day in the Children’s Ward of the Port Moresby General Hospital thousands of miles away.

It is the loftiest loneliest spot in PNG where it snows.

A medical surgeon, Dr Waine was right at the top with his brave daughter Kelesi Waine, the pinnacle of a special climb-a-thon of Mount Wilhelm to raise funds to help sick children with special needs in PNG.

Dr Arnold Waine is the Head of Department for Surgery School of Medicine and Health Science at UPNG, and an honorary specialist surgeon at PMGH.

He decided to spend last Christmas break with his family in the freezing peaks of PNG’s highest mountain in the Kundiawa Gembogl district in Chimbu province.

Dr Waine at Lake Piunde below the mountain.

Dr Waine and his family were humbled by the idea. They wanted this to be their family’s support for his work and to show his children’s love for the sick children that he helps.

Most of the children he sees and assists are those children who are affected by hydrocephalus.

Dr Waine said this disease is a condition where fluid in the head and spine called Cerebral Spinal Fluid or CSF gets blocked and the head of a newborn baby grows bigger than its body.

"It needs a small tube to place into the head during surgery to drain into the abdomen and out as urine," he says.

Our government pharmacy does not buy this (tube)  as a regular item, because it's not in the catalog.

"A lot of children die from complications or develop to become permanent disabilities."

Our medical doctors in Papua New Guinea public health face enormous challenges to provide medical services to a growing population, with scarce resource, limited funding and inadequate facilities.

Daughter Shiana embraces the cold of the grasslands.

Dr Waine said he had spent eight hours walking from the base camp to the summit of Mt Wilhelm on Christmas eve with his daughter Kelesi Waine, a 15-year-old doing Year 10 at Port Moresby International School.

His other two children Shiana, 16-years-old and Kua Waine 9-years-old made it up to the base at Lake Piunde.

"I promised a sick little one here at Pom Gen to walk to raise some money to buy his VP shunt pressure tube," he said.

"I didn’t realize it was going to cover for many others with the same condition throughout PNG.

"As promised to my patient child,  my family and I did this for you and other special children in PNG during Christmas eve.

" And special thanks to those who sponsor this walk and reach the needy."

Mt Wilhelm was named after the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's son Wilhelmsberg in 1888 by a German newspaper reporter.

A proud Kelesi who made it to the top.