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GREEN ORANGES ON LION MOUNTAIN
EMILY JOY (DR. GAIL HADDOCK)

By Ken Hambly
Contact the author via Chris Johnstone by e-mail at christopher.johnstone@ntlworld.com

I met Gail Haddock in O'Neill's pub in Union Street in Dublin, by far the best place to meet anyone. We were with a group of medical writers, and Gail was enjoying the ambience, if that is the correct word.

Gail appeared to be a typical Scottish GP and mother of three from Strathpeffer, but her book, "Green Oranges on Lion Mountain" (written under the pen name Emily Joy) tells a very different story. It is a fictionalised account of her experiences working for VSO in Sierra Leone (Lion Mountain to you) and it is truly remarkable. She was already a GP before she was persuaded to volunteer to go to Africa despite having no surgical experience, something of a necessity for isolated doctors in that continent. Once there she was sent up country to a remote mission hospital, where she was installed as the Chief (and only) Medical Officer. Help, or indeed someone to talk to, was five hours away on impossible roads.

Before long she was doing major surgery, such as caesarean sections and amputations, in primitive conditions without the aid of an anaesthetist, oxygen, available blood or any of the creature comforts enjoyed by our surgical colleagues in the west. Whilst operating on an ectopic pregnancy she describes filtering the blood obtained per abdomen through muslin and administering it intravenously to the patient. All part of a day's work, and apparently the patient survived.

What comes across in the book is not just Gail's remarkable courage and fortitude in appalling personal and professional conditions, but also her great regard and affection for the local nurses and patients. The book takes us up to the beginning of the insurgency that was tragic not just for the hospital, but for some of her friends who lost their lives in the civil war which followed.

This book should be a compulsory read for any Scottish GP grubbing round for quality points. It would be an enlightening read for patients as well. It is not to be missed.

See: www.eye-books.com/greenoranges/home.htm for photos and extracts.

All profits from the book will go to help rebuild the Kambia Hospital. See: www.kambiahospital.org.uk

Other online articles by Ken Hambly can be found at:
hoolet edition 45 - Green Oranges on Lion Mountain
hoolet edition 45 - Cuthbert Flange Revisited
hoolet web extra - Letter to the Editor

hoolet is the magazine of RCGP Scotland. It is supported intellectually, financially and emotionally by RCGP Scotland.

This issue maintained by Robert Hallam.