Speaker - Dr. Peter Harland

Kenora’s loss was the Kingdom of Bhutan’s gain when Dr. Peter Harland decided to offer his services to the Asian country after having retired from his practice in the Lake of the Woods region in 2009.

The pediatrician offered his services in the Buddhist country sandwiched between China, to the north, and India, to the south, first in 2012 and again in 2015. During his first visit Harland was stationed in Phuntsholing, a rural community on the southern border with India.

“I was looking for something new and interesting and Bhutan was a safe and interesting part of the world where they speak English, which was very important for communicating with patients and other physicians,” said Harland after addressing the Kenora Rotary Club about his travels on Monday, Jan. 25.

Harland said in Phuntsholing there was a lot of Indian patients who’d cross the border to access the free health care provided in Bhutan rather than pay for it in their home country. The 71-year-old was the sole pediatrician in the area from February until May 2012, which made it hard to work.

“Practicing solo was more difficult because I didn’t have time off as easily,” Harland joked. “Plus, I couldn’t confer with colleagues and a lot of (the patients) had never seen a pediatrician before.”

The southern portion of Bhutan has a tropical atmosphere, while the eastern part of the country where he work from February to May 2015 is mountainous. From north to south, the distance of the country in kilometres is about the same as from Kenora to Winnipeg and east to west, the distance from Kenora to Thunder Bay, though Harland cautions it takes up to two days to travel across the country where speed limits are about 50 kms per hour.

“You can’t go much more than 50 kms because the roads are so twisty and turny and they’re only one and a half cars wide, so whenever you met someone going the other way one of you had to pull over to let the other car through and you squeaked by. I never drove,” said Harland.

He noted the patients were similar to ones he treated in Kenora because “kids are kids.” He did, however, treat children with a multitude of illnesses not seen in Canada.

“The most troubling cases were the ones we couldn’t diagnosis because either we didn’t have the equipment or the patient was too sick and died before we could make a diagnosis. There was a lot of fascinating pathology,” said Harland.

Bhutan has no medical school, so all of their doctors are trained in India, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. Similar to Kenora and other areas in Canada, there’s a shortage of doctors and medical staff. There are only six pediatricians in Bhutan, four in the capital of Thimphu, one in the south and one in the east.

When Harland returned to Bhutan in 2015, he chose to go to Mongar in the east to work with the solo pediatrician, which was a whole new experience. Mongar is located high in the mountains, making it a full day’s journey for many patients. The referral hospital served a population of about 200,000 in the eastern half of the country.

“The biggest difference to Phuntsholing was in Mongar they had a pediatric intensive care unit, neonatal intensive care and a full range of surgeons who could perform surgery if necessary,” said Harland, adding he’s already looking into returning. “I’d go back to Mongar because the guy there, the solo pediatrician there, is so overwhelmed that he needs the help.”

Harland said he did teach the doctors he interacted with some basic Canadian tricks in practicing medicine.

“I taught them a better usage of antibiotics and better usage of soap and water,” said Harland. “Water’s in short supply so they tend not to use it and I had to encourage them to use soap and water.”

sheri.lamb@sunmedia.ca