Narrator 1:

It's the worst nightmare of every tourist. At noon, you're enjoying an expensive holiday in the wildlife parks of East Africa. By the small hours of the next morning, you're in agony.

AMREF Dispatch:

Okay, I've copied. You have a very sick patient.

Narrator 1:

That's when your tourist lodge-

AMREF Dispatch:

How-

Narrator 1:

... calls Amref-

AMREF Dispatch:

... severe is the gastroenteritis-

Narrator 1:

The African Medical-

AMREF Dispatch:

... over?

Narrator 1:

... and Research Foundation.

NS Lodge:

He's complaining of severe pain radiating from the chest through the left arm, over.

AMREF Dispatch:

Okay, copy that. The patient has chest pain radiating to the arm, confirm?

NS Lodge:

He's looking very sick, and he's vomiting, over.

AMREF Dispatch:

Confirm you are at Ngorongoro Serena Lodge, and you want us to come first thing in the morning, over.

NS Lodge:

Affirmative.

Patient 1:

Flew here today?

Doctor 1:

[inaudible 00:01:22].

Patient 1:

Yeah.

Doctor 1:

Small prick, sorry.

Narrator 1:

Thanks to Amref's Flying Doctor Service and his insurance company, Luigi Lino will be in a Nairobi hospital well before 10 o'clock.

Doctor 1:

Just take some deep breaths for me. Sorry, deep breath. Right.

Narrator 1:

Meanwhile Luigi's in the competent hands of a locum doctor. Amref has its own emergency medicine specialist, but she's otherwise engaged.

The famous Kenya Safari Rally is on, and Amref's providing the emergency medical cover.

Bettina Vadera:

We are now following the next rally section, section C7.

Narrator 1:

Hovering over the race for three days is Amref's head of emergency services, Dr. Bettina Vadera.

While the rally's on, the helicopter touches down only for brief refuelling stops, but it's hardly a typical job for Amref.

Bettina Vadera:

This is a very, very unusual thing we do. Normally, what we do is air rescue and medical emergencies for the local people mainly. Road traffic accidents make about 60% of our evacuations anyway.

Let me just [crosstalk 00:02:41]-

Narrator 1:

This is a more familiar scene for Bettina Vadera.

Bettina Vadera:

... breathing.

AMREF EMT 1:

[inaudible 00:02:45].

Bettina Vadera:

Okay, just breath in and out.

Patient 2:

It hurts [crosstalk 00:02:49].

Bettina Vadera:

Yeah. Try as good as you can.

Narrator 1:

A matatu, one of Kenya's lethal bush taxis, has crashed in the middle of nowhere. Two Kenyans and a Japanese backpacker are badly hurt.

Bettina Vadera:

Where do you feel pain?

Patient 3:

[inaudible 00:03:03].

Bettina Vadera:

Here?

Patient 3:

[inaudible 00:03:04].

Bettina Vadera:

Huh?

Patient 3:

[inaudible 00:03:06].

Bettina Vadera:

Here?

Patient 3:

[inaudible 00:03:08].

AMREF EMT 2:

She doesn't understand English.

Bettina Vadera:

She doesn't speak English.

Narrator 1:

Dr. Vadera was trained in emergency medicine in Germany, but she's never regretted her decision to come to Kenya.

Bettina Vadera:

You feel that each and every doctor who is working here is really, really needed. Whereas I think in Europe whether I would be there or 500 other people doing the same thing would probably not make a difference. Then you think, yeah, here, you really do make a difference to people probably. I hope so.

Narrator 1:

The fleet of modern aircraft, the ventilators, and ECGs, and infusion pumps are all a far cry from the way Amref started 40 years ago.

But the idea that doctors here make a real difference hasn't changed at all since Amref's founder took to the air back in 1957.

Narrator 2:

He is called Michael Wood, and his name will be remembered in Africa for many years.

Narrator 1:

Sir Michael Wood, farmer, amateur pilot, and plastic surgeon.

It was his idea to use aircraft and HF radio to bring the big city surgeon skills to the bush. He would fly for three hours, operate in a tiny bush hospital for eight, and then fly three hours home.

But Wood soon realised that even his prodigious energy couldn't make much of a dent on Kenya's massive health problems.

Sir Michael W.:

[inaudible 00:04:35].

Narrator 1:

Prevention was better than cure.

Sir Michael W.:

... other way as we do this is by going out to the bush and getting clinics going in the bush for preventive medicine.

Narrator 1:

He recruited Anne Spoerry, Swiss origin, French nationality, farmer and doctor, pilot, adventurer, and one of the feistiest women you're likely to meet.

Anne Spoerry:

Where did all the bloody Maasais go? Oh, dear, dear, dear.

Narrator 1:

Anne Spoerry was already in her 40s when she learnt to fly-

Anne Spoerry:

[inaudible 00:05:07].

Narrator 1:

... and set up Amref's first mobile clinics in the bush.

Anne Spoerry:

This runway is absolutely impossible. There's no windsock again, and there are holes on the runway. Will you go and see the chief about it?

Bush Staff 1:

Yes, I'll do.

Anne Spoerry:

[inaudible 00:05:18] it's impossible. [crosstalk 00:05:20].

Narrator 1:

Michael Wood died in the 1980s, but Anne Spoerry is still very much alive and kicking.

Anne Spoerry:

I am very, very, very displeased, okay? Thank you. Bastards.

[Hildar 00:05:39], Hildar, you got the drugs?

AMREF HQ 1:

It's right there.

Narrator 1:

Anne Spoerry was 79 last birthday. Officially, she retired from Amref years ago.

Anne Spoerry:

Thank you very much.

Narrator 1:

But she still has an office at their headquarters in Nairobi, and she still ferries drugs and supplies from Amref's pharmacy to clinics all over Kenya.

Anne Spoerry:

This is very, very important, because it's ... Eye problems are terrible there. Aspirin, aspirin, that's Flagyl for diarrhoea, and this is a crate of disinfectants which are so important now because of cholera, and-

Narrator 1:

She pays for the drugs and the aviation fuel with money she raises herself.

Anne Spoerry:

Right, well, thank you very much.

AMREF HQ 2:

You're welcome.

Anne Spoerry:

You've written it all down?

AMREF HQ 2:

Yes.

Narrator 1:

That means keeping on top of the paperwork.

Anne Spoerry:

I hate paperwork, and I'm not very good at it.

Interviewer:

Is it growing on you?

Anne Spoerry:

It grows on me. I have to clear all that. I know exactly what all these papers are. I've got to clear them, and, of course, things crop up like you. You can't always do what you plan to do.

Hello, yes? I'm arranging for having, to get the people ready to know that I'm coming and can do some diagnosis for them, et cetera.

We'll need some more. We're going to this little village in the Rift Valley where I probably started treating the people in 1965, something like that, '66 probably.

RV Villagers:

[foreign language 00:07:31].

Narrator 1:

At the village of [Chamboli 00:07:42], they know she's on her way. A visit from the woman they call Mama Daktari is a big event. Some of the Maasai walk 20 kilometres to see her.

RV Villagers:

[foreign language 00:07:53].

Narrator 1:

At this time of year, the grass of the Rift Valley is normally dead and brown, but unseasonal rains have brought magnificent pasture for the cattle and plagues of malarial mosquitoes to torment the Maasai.

RV Villagers:

[foreign language 00:08:11].

Narrator 1:

These days, Anne Spoerry always flies with her co-pilot, Eric. Even though she trained him, she still prefers to fly herself.

Anne Spoerry:

I was 45 when I learnt to fly. It was a new dimension, and the freedom that I still have now being able to get in my plane, it really is fantastic. The whole of Africa is yours.

RV Villagers:

[foreign language 00:08:51].

Narrator 1:

Among the waiting patients at Chamboli and all over Kenya are people who've been treated by Dr. Spoerry for 30 years.

RV Villager 1:

[foreign language 00:09:02].

Narrator 1:

Dr. Spoerry had the airstrip at Chamboli cleared back in the 1960s.

Anne Spoerry:

The strip is a natural band that doesn't grow anything, and we had to take all the stones out and level it nicely. Now, it stays like that. It's absolutely incredible how useful it is.

Narrator 1:

But according to Amref's chief pilot, few people could take a 20-year-old Piper Cherokee into a strip like this.

AMREF Pilot:

Nobody can fly that aircraft like her, because we have some very short airfield. None of us would try what she's doing in her aircraft. She does it with experience, lots of experience.

RV Villagers:

[foreign language 00:10:15].

Anne Spoerry:

... minute. The sun is going to go-

RV Villager 2:

[Swahili 00:10:20]!

Anne Spoerry:

... where? [Swahili 00:10:21].

Narrator 1:

Dr. Spoerry has lots of experience too in setting up a clinic under a tree. You need two folding chairs, a stiffened sheet of cardboard, a box of drugs, and a good, strong dose of authority.

Anne Spoerry:

Where is ... You are not doing your job.

RV Bush  Asst.:

They are now seated.

Anne Spoerry:

No, but look at all these. Can I see anything there? Can you please all go out? The Maasai will never make a line. They will always crowd. Some of the people, the nomads in the north are much, much more disciplined. They will make a line, wait.

How old is he?

RV Bush  Asst.:

13 years old.

Anne Spoerry:

He's got a fever, yes. He's very hot. When did he start being sick?

RV Bush  Asst.:

It started yesterday.

Anne Spoerry:

Yesterday?

RV Bush  Asst.:

Yesterday.

Anne Spoerry:

Malaria, dysentery, diarrhoea, the children quite often anaemia due to worms. One the real plagues here are the trachoma, this conjunctivitis which is very, very persistent and, finally, wears away the cornea, and people become blind.

I can see she's got a cataract. She's nearly blind.

Narrator 1:

Old Mother [Kalama 00:11:39] has been waiting over an hour for her turn.

Anne Spoerry:

She's definitely got chronic arthritis of the hip, of the right hip. She's got a cataract of the right eye. I can see it very well. It's completely white. If she could be taken to Kikuyu Hospital, they operate for nothing, or very nearly nothing, and they are very, very good.

How long she been sick?

RV Bush  Asst.:

For one week now.

Anne Spoerry:

One week?

RV Bush  Asst.:

Yeah.

Narrator 1:

While Dr. Spoerry is dealing with her penniless patients in Maasai Land, Dr. Vadera is 200 kilometres away in Tanzania.

Bettina Vadera:

One, two, three, up. Careful.

Narrator 1:

A wealthy heart attack victim is being airlifted by Amref to Nairobi. Emergency evacuations are only a small part of Amref's operations.

Bettina Vadera:

Then when did the pain disappear again?

Patient 4:

After three days of taking the pills.

Narrator 1:

Primary health care, medical education, and the outreach programme started by Michael Wood and Anne Spoerry are all going strong.

But evacuations like this are undoubtedly expensive. In a country wracked by AIDS and cholera and Rift Valley fever should Amref really be spending its money on wealthy heart attack patients and tourists with tummy ache? But, according to Dr. Vadera, her department doesn't spend money, it makes it.

Bettina Vadera:

The emergence services, they raise money through memberships, so by people subscribing to us and paying membership fees obviously not everybody is going to be rescued. A lot of the membership money goes towards the outreach programmes paying for it.

RV Villager 3:

Some money

Anne Spoerry:

Some money. Oh, yeah.

RV Villager 3:

Some money.

Narrator 1:

These days both Bettina Vadera and Anne Spoerry are exceptions at Amref. Not because they're women, but because they're white.

Interviewer:

Most of the medical staff now are Kenyan, aren't they? But-

Anne Spoerry:

Oh, yes, most of the staff in general.

Interviewer:

But you get the occasional expatriate coming in like Dr. Bettina Vadera. Does that-

Anne Spoerry:

Yes, yes.

Interviewer:

Does she remind you of you when you were-

Anne Spoerry:

Well-

Interviewer:

... young?

Anne Spoerry:

... in a way, yes, I'm sure. I'm sure. Well, she's doing very much similar work. Bettina really reminds me very much of the days when they're ready to go and doing a lot of things. I'm keeping up things rather than starting new ones.

Narrator 1:

So far, Anne Spoerry is keeping things up remarkably well.

For her trusty co-pilot, Eric, and for her passengers, flying with Mama Daktari is always an interesting experience.

Anne Spoerry:

There are some birds there.

Narrator 1:

Sometime soon, someone might decide that she's not fit enough to fly. But Amref's chief pilot doesn't like to think about that.

AMREF Pilot:

I don't know. She will have to try to find something else to do, but that's not ... I don't think it will be easy, not easy.

Interviewer:

It's her life?

AMREF Pilot:

Yeah, I think it's her life.

Interviewer:

Has anyone tried up to now?

AMREF Pilot:

No, no, you want to?

Interviewer:

Well, no, I didn't. Suggesting to Dr. Spoerry that she might be too old to fly struck me as foolhardy beyond the call of duty. Besides, it plainly isn't true. Mama Daktari won't be stopping for a long time yet. Even when she does, the doctors of Amref will keep on flying.

Anne Spoerry:

Thank you.