In rural eastern Indonesia, families lack access to primary medical care. When a medical emergency occurs, everything becomes very complicated, and the risks are immense.

Getting medical treatment is a real challenge for an injured or sick person when you live far from everything, have no money, no means of transport and no road leading to the village.

As you all know, Fair Future is, above all, a medical foundation. Currently, communities and children do not have access to the most basic medical care.

Overall here, millions of people are forced to spend sometimes almost all of their income on medical expenses. Many of them will wait for it to pass. This is the case here in most rural regions in which we work. The provisional application of first aid as initial medical care to a wound or injury until professional medical care is available can, in many cases, save lives.

Common injuries Fair Future encounters fall into the following categories: Thermal wounds, penetrating skin wounds, non-penetrating (blunt) skin wounds, animal bites, and insect bites. These injuries can lead to the death of a child or an adult if they get worse.

Faced with this, and for nearly 15 years, we have been offering medical care to all who do not have access to it. But we are not always there when a medical problem arises, an accident requiring emergency medical care so that a wound does not become infected and becomes a more severe problem after a few hours. And after a few days, a real medical emergency, as we saw with Assa last January.

Hence the idea we had before the pandemic: Provide primary medical care to all children, with a first aid kit for each school/village located in the most rural areas of Sumba. The application of this program is training teachers in schools and rural communities by our medical teams within the framework of our base camp of Rumah Kambera.

What are we putting in place? Access to primary medical care in the event of an emergency in ultra-rural regions

Objective: How to transmit the gestures that can save a life?

What the foundation is putting in place is innovative and ingenious and cannot be done without the help of nearly fifty teachers from the poorest and rural areas of East Sumba. And yes, the teachers, like everywhere in the world, are the most influential people in the villages. They have heard that they are a source of knowledge and can learn and transmit knowledge to all.

Fair Future and Kawan Baik organize three to four-day training that invites teachers from these outermost regions to join our field medical teams, which include doctors, nurses and emergency care specialists. During these four days of training, they will learn how to treat a wound, and give first aid to an injured or sick child so that his situation does not worsen and becomes much more severe. But also and above all, determine when it will be necessary to call a doctor or go to the nearest medical centre.

Save lives by treating a seemingly minor injury and preventing it from becoming severe.

Whether a minor skin wound or a severe life-threatening injury, all types of damage should be treated with first aid on the spot without delay, as it may save a life or a limb. First aid can help stop bleeding and prevent the spread of infections or venom. Applying first aid immediately can sometimes avoid expensive medical attention and help the wound heal with minimal scarring.

What are the most common types of injuries in the outermost regions? And how to react when damage occurs in an isolated village?

And above all, how to give first aid when most of the time the villagers have no direct access to water, no electricity, no telephone network, no road and no means of transport? Some concrete examples!

Thermal injuries: Caused by extremely hot objects and surfaces that come into contact with the skin, such as boiling water, a hot stove, gasoline (like Assa), and household fireplace: Eliminate the source of injury – Uncover or remove clothing from the burned area and wash with cool and clean (not cold) water – Alternatively, apply a cold compress until the pain subsides, then use a clean dressing with or without antibiotic cream.

Penetrating wounds of the skin: These include punctures caused by stab wounds, bone fractures with open skin, wounds with axe or machetes, wounds related to vegetation because people walk barefoot: Clean the wound with clean water (if available) and apply firm, steady pressure if bleeding occurs – Cover the wound with a clean dressing and minimize movement as much as possible until the bleeding stops.

Non-penetrating (blunt) skin wounds: These include concussions, lacerations (a tear-like skin wound), and abrasions (the outer layer of skin is scraped and scratched): For cuts and bruises, rinse the wound with clean water (if available), then clean it with a disinfectant solution such as diluted iodine – Apply topical antibiotic ointment and wrap the wound with a clean dressing – If a bone fracture is suspected, try not to move the patient’s fractured limb or wound site and contact Kawan Baik, Fair Future or Rumah Kambera for transport to a medical centre for treatment.

Bites and stings: Such as those from humans, dogs, and snakes, or insects such as bees, spiders, or scorpions: Rinse the wound area with clean water (if available), and apply a disinfectant solution or topical antibiotic ointment – Cover the wound with a clean dressing and seek medical attention or contact Kawan Baik, Fair Future or Rumah Kambera – Learn how to take note the cause of the injury so that You can relay this information to the medical care team.

Are you a doctor, emergency doctor, or nurse? If you want to join this project with us, you are welcome to contact us here.

Rumah Kambera – East Sumba

How we deal with and manage injuries in rural areas