Over the month of April, I was able to spend 4 weeks in the Philippines, working with the Christian charity Integritas. This is a small charity, started in 2014, which provided healthcare for detainees in police stations and prisons in and around Olongapo.

We arrived just before a weekend, so after spending a day getting to know the team and visiting some other local charities, we were able to spend the weekend carrying out induction activities, finding out more about the work of the charity, and adjusting to working within the Philippines. We also spent some time using the pool at the local hotel!

Over the next couple of weeks, we got stuck in quickly and began working with the detainees. This involved carrying out basic observations, carrying out basic consultations, often with a Filipino staff member interpreting, to those who had physical or mental health needs, and asking detainees about their spiritual health, offering to pray with them, or provide a gospel. The dominant religion in the Philippines is catholic, and we found that many of the detainees were open to prayer, and keen for a gospel tract to read in the cells, however, it was difficult to follow up these conversations due to limited time and access.

We were also able to bring dry rice with us to the police stations, as detainees are not routinely provided with food, and once a week we carried out a food distribution day, in which we would provide a hot, home-cooked meal to every detainee, cooked by one of our talented staff members.

We soon got into the swing of the work, although we had to adjust much of our practice from the UK, due to the lack of resources and the price of healthcare in the Philippines – we were unable to do any blood tests or invasive investigations, so were making decisions in the patient’s best interests despite having less information than we are used to. Furthermore, we also had to take into consideration the price of healthcare in the Philippines – often, even if we suspected a patient had an issue outside the scope of our care, finding the funding for them to see a hospital doctor, was in some cases, difficult or impossible. This was emotionally difficult, and meant we felt we were unable to provide the care we needed to. We also found that with patients moving around between police stations and prisons, we were regularly losing people to follow up after a couple of consultations, which could be frustrating.

One of my favourite aspects of the trip was getting to know the Filipino staff working with the charity. These 3 women were so welcoming and kind, and we were able to get to know them really well over the month, eating together, hanging out on the beach and even going to karaoke as well as working!

I learnt lots during my elective, both in terms of medicine and what it looks like to manage and run a small charity. We definitely saw some of the logistical challenges of this, but also the ways it can really make a difference on a small scale.

It was great to see how open the detainees were to talking about their faith, and this has challenged me to be more aware of the role played by faith in everyone’s lives – although it may be less obvious in the UK, it’s still an important part of wellbeing that is often neglected as doctors, and patients can often be keen to talk about it. I definitely had to actively trust God in a way which I don’t often in the UK – there were times when we felt there was really nothing we could do without his help!