On Monday the 14th of July I headed down to the airport to begin what was to be the participation in one of the biggest events I’ve taken part in St. John or otherwise in my life.

I was off to World Youth Day, Sydney 2008, a Catholic Youth Festival which was the largest event ever held in Australia.

223,000 Registered pilgrims took part in the week long Youth Festival from the 15th to the 20th of July.

I surprisingly encountered some pilgrims in Alice Springs Airport of all places en route to Sydney. The airport was as busy as I’ve ever seen it with a large group of German pilgrims in town hosted by one of the local parishes.

A quick hop, step and jump and we landed in Sydney and I was on my way to Kensington College at the UNSW Campus where over 100 St. John volunteers from all over NSW, Australia and the world were staying. It was great to see St. John members from every single state and territory (3 people, Greg and John Payne and myself being from the Territory) and 2 visitors from both South Africa and Wales volunteering at the event.

It was a sight to behold with over 700 St. John volunteers being utilised over the week at locations all over Sydney.

A sold out welcome dinner was planned that first night so that everyone could let their hair down before the week of hard work. I was fortunate enough to catch up with many friends from interstate, especially the Western Australian contingent, many of whom I’d spent lots of time with during my time with St. John WA.

Day 1

Think of ACMC as a mini hospital nearly equipped as good as any emergency department and staffed as well if not better. I’ve been familiar with the level and quality of equipment with my time in Western Australia but what blew me away was the level and skill mix of the staff manning the ACMC.

On duty that day were no less than 3 doctors (where I’ve seen a doctor on duty only once or twice in 7 years in WA) in addition to at least 5 Registered Nurses and other general staff as well.

The aim of the ACMC is to prevent hospital admissions if possible and stabilise and offer advanced care to patients waiting for ambulance transport.

Things were fairly quiet during this shift but earlier on the first aid post attached to the centre was closed and the staff moved north to the Barangaroo wharf area as they were experiencing high casualty numbers.

It was left to ACMC to now man both these areas. Luckily our services weren’t needed that much with only a few minor casualties presenting or being transferred from the 4 other first aid posts in the area.

Day 2

Being an ex container wharf it was a huge area to cover with over 10 first aid posts scattered throughout the location.

The day was fairly uneventful with the gates remaining closed to the public until 1400 when we were on site at 1000.

Most of the time was spent moving up and down delivering supplies and checking and finding each post location.

Only 1 casualty to report who we transported to the nearest first aid post for treatment.

Day 3

First casualty was a lady who was pregnant and had begun to have some blood spotting down below.
We managed to get through the heavy crowds with a stretcher and bring her back to the ACMC where there were another 3 doctors on duty again and luckily enough a midwife too.

The crowd was particularly dense tonight.

Imagine standing by the door for the entire shift from 1600-2300 watching thousands of pilgrims walk past for the entire time.

There was a virtual sea of people (or wombats as the pilgrims were affectionately known) as they were all being channelled out of Darling Harbour to Central Train Station.

It was literally wombats for the next 5km!

A relatively quiet night for the transport team followed with only a few late jobs.

ACMC proved its worth in preventing the hospital admission of a man whom we transported from the other end of Darling Harbour with a severely irritated and red eye after developing an ulcer on the inside of his eye lids.
Prompt assessment by one of the doctors and some eye drops and a prescription later was probably a bit cheaper than a hospital visit for the American pilgrim.

By this stage of the event it was coming clear of some of the barriers that St. John volunteers had to overcome.
Firstly, the language barrier with pilgrims coming from 170 different nations meant a variety of different communication techniques and for these speaking multiple languages a busy day running around translating.

This many people packed so closely into the city was an interesting challenge and stories of 100 people living at one school sharing 2 showers weren’t uncommon and also meant that communicable diseases were running rife.

Day 4

Upon arrival it was made apparent that there had been a gastroenteritis outbreak with several admissions to ACMC being made and we weren’t the only site to be dealing with it;
reports were coming in from several other locations with patients presenting with gastro symptoms.

In line with prearranged plans Department of Health workers were on site providing health monitoring and statistics on various outbreaks.

Being short handed in terms of member numbers meant I was also used in a few different roles, being a first aider in the first aid post outside ACMC, an ACMC Nurse and being allocated to the transport team at the same time.

That night saw a steady flow of patients with a few interesting retrievals.

Again, the language barrier proving to be a problem with many patients in addition to trying to work out the equivalent Australia brands for medications which they had with they had with them.

ACMC dealt admirably with the influx of casualties, some requiring isolation because of communicable diseases.

There were a few other interesting cases, like a woman who had put a sewing needle through her finger and presented with the thread still through the eye of the needle.

Day 5

Randwick racecourse was taken over for a vigil under the stars and final mass the day after.

Over 200,000 pilgrims braved the cold to sleep out under the stars.

It was the biggest St. John deployment I’ve seen in my life with 22 first aid posts needing to be manned in addition to the command area.

This was probably the best resourced event I’ve seen with outdoor heaters for each post and a mini hospital onsite run by the Department of Health.

There was also a dedicated medical consultation radio channel where members could consult with a St. John doctor about patients and a rewarming centre for mild hypothermia victims with an overflow facility across the road with a capacity for over 1000 people. It was a sight to see so many people on such a huge racecourse.

The post I was based at saw over 40 casualties between 3 people, including myself from 2200 to 0800 the next morning with this post being one of the busier ones.

Most of these were minor ailments like requests for Panadol or Tylanol/acitimenifen as the visitors from the US liked to call it, or people who were simply cold.

The old problem of toilet facilities was dealt with admirably with specially designed toilet blocks in place connected to the main sewage system so no nasty overflows occurred.

Interesting sights in the night included underprepared international pilgrims sleeping out in the cold with nothing but a thin blanket and the hot chocolate line that must have been over 100m long.

Overall it was a hugely successful night in terms of St. John activities with the medical consultation channel a huge success.

Overall, World Youth Day Sydney 2008 was a great success in terms of St. John activities and it was certainly a most memorable event.

I think it will be the biggest St. John event I’ll be involved with for a long time, but I encourage any other members to certainly consider participating in a cross border operation like this should the opportunity present itself.

It’s a great way to meet other volunteers and have a look at how other states and even countries work.

I left Sydney after standing in line for an hour or more at the airport with lots of good memories and many more good friends and I hope that others can enjoy future events as much as I have.

 

Article by Brian Ch'ng