At our meeting of 17th September 2019, our member Past Rotary International Director (PRID) Ken Collins spoke briefly about his work as a medical doctor and Rotary Volunteer in the Refugee Camps of Hong Kong (1983) and Papua New Guinea (1986).
A Rotarian for 52 years, PRID Ken has had a rich involvement in Rotary locally and internationally, serving as a volunteer in excess of 30 times. He touched on two such experiences.
The of these was with the Vietnamese Refugees in Hong Kong, where Ken showed graphic pictures taken from old slides of the living conditions of the refugees in the two camps of Jubilee (an open Camp where refugees could go out to work) and Kai Tak, a closed camp, where the refugees were not able to freely come and go. Common medical conditions were infections, particularly of the skin.
Ken’s wife, Past President Di Collins, assisted in the nursery where the children were looked after while their parents went out to work, and the dispensary. She also assisted with a World Health Organization survey of the refugee children’s teeth, where they recorded the effect of sugar and diet on the children’s teeth.
The second experience PRID Ken spoke about was the time that worked in 16 camps on the border of Papua New Guina and West Irian, in dangerous, primitive conditions – both working and accommodation wise – with a waterfall/pond for bathing and a bamboo strut bed in a grass hut as accommodation. He found himself on the wrong side of the border one night where guerrilla warfare was taking place. People were being de-bowelled and beheaded. He was in many other life threating situations during his volunteering in this area.