The Maldives: Bringing relief to Buruni

October 2005

Report: Robyn Anns

In January this year, Monash medicine graduate and Fulbright fellow Dr Ranjana Srivastava (MB BS 1997) headed for the remote island of Buruni, in the Maldives, to provide medical assistance to tsunami survivors.

Dr Srivastava found the island's population of 500 had swelled to 1500 with displaced Maldivians. She was the sole doctor on the island and working from a basic health post with no lab or X-ray facilities.

"I had to use all my clinical skills to help my patients," Dr Srivastava said. "I lived inside the health post and was always on call. I treated hundreds of people, most of whom had ordinary medical problems but who were clearly psychologically traumatised by the tsunami."

Dr Srivastava also witnessed a frustrating lack of coordination and organisation in the delivery of basic healthcare.

"Having trained in the affluent West, it was confronting and sometimes sad to witness the vast discrepancies in healthcare, knowing that many of the problems my patients faced could be solved through improved planning," she said.

In particular, a complete absence of medical transport had made it impossible for patients to travel to the regional hospital on another island. So Dr Srivastava set about raising funds to build a medical transport boat.

She raised nearly US$20,000 from donors in Australia and the US as well as from some Maldivian philanthropists. Her employer, the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago, granted Dr Srivastava paid leave and also contributed money to her cause.

"In June, I returned to the Maldives to dedicate the boat, called Hadhiyah, which means gift, to the people of Buruni," she said. Managed by the Island Development Committee, the boat can carry up to six people on the one-hour journey to the regional hospital.

The funds raised are also supporting a driver and covering maintenance costs until the island has had a chance to restore its livelihood through basic farming. "I am a firm believer in empowering change at the grassroots level, and I hope this is just the beginning of my work in the developing world,"
Dr Srivastava said.

Dr Srivastava works at Southern Health as a physician. Her specialty is medical oncology.