Doctor’s moving memoirs of a life in service

Lifestyle – Dr Dom Colbert’s work a medical volunteer brought him all over the world, from famine-stricken countries such as Biafra and Ethiopia to conflict zones such as Bosnia and Sudan. His memoirs capture these experiences as JUDY MURPHY learns.

The first case of typhus recorded in Switzerland in the 20th century was in 1985 when Galway-based doctor, Dom Colbert, was flown to Geneva from Ethiopia where he had been working as a volunteer at the height of the dreadful famine in that country.

Dr Colbert, who was seriously ill with the parasite-borne illness, had been put on an emergency flight from Ethiopia to London. However, just after take-off, his condition deteriorated so rapidly that the plane was diverted to Switzerland. As he entered the hospital, he suffered a cardiac arrest and nearly died.

Dom reckons that he contracted this highly infectious disease while treating dehydrated and malnourished children during that horrific famine.

Typhus is carried by parasites such as lice, which thrive in such conditions. They were rampant among the children who were dying of malnourishment in the camp where Dom worked.

Treating children who were most seriously ill involved holding them steady to administer an IV to their jugular vein. Such close contact transmits lice and Dom thinks that’s how he fell ill.

It’s more than 30 years later but the softly-spoken 84-year-old can still recall the scenes in that camp.  And when he talks of that time, his focus is on the “little ones” who died, not his own illness.

“Don’t make me out to be a saint. I was only doing my job,” he says, adding that those who deserve credit are people such as Franciscan Missionary, Sister Miriam Duggan, an obstetrician from Limerick, who was honoured by President Michael D Higgins in 2015 for her lifelong dedication to helping the most vulnerable in Africa.

Dom’s commitment may not have been so great, but his humanitarian work is extraordinary and forms the basis of his two recently published books, An Irish Doctor’s Odyssey: The Saints are in Heaven and No Tears Left: Biafra to Bosnia. Compassion, humour, frustration, self-deprecation and great insights are on offer in the two, which were written for his family.

“They’re both light and heavy,” he remarks.

Dom’s work as a volunteer doctor and surgeon took him to many developing and war-torn countries, mostly for three- and six-month periods, and he witnessed such events as the 1969-70 Biafran war and the 1990s Siege of Sarajevo.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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