Safmarine Maluti plays key role in emergency mission

Ray Smuts COMES a time when rigid shipping schedules have to be disrupted - particularly when human lives are involved - as Safmarine has once again shown by coming to the assistance of the remote island of Saint Helena for the third time in as many years. Last Wednesday night, the 2 300TEU Monrovian-registered Safmarine Maluti steamed out of Table Bay for Newark, New Jersey, in the US carrying free of charge an island doctor and nurse evacuated from the island at the end of July along with a critically ill patient. Johnny Drummond, 46, editor of the 1 700-circulation Saint Helena Herald, was on the brink of liver failure and the islandÕs senior medical officer, UCT-qualified Dr Derek Topliss, was convinced that his chances of post-operative survival would be slim without adequate health care of the kind that Òonly a centre of surgical excellence like Cape Town can provide.Ó Saint Helena, in the South Atlantic 1 500 nautical miles from Cape Town, has no airport and is wholly dependent for all its supplies on the small mailship St Helena. Problem was she was on her way to Britain at the time and would only return in September. An emergency radio call went out to which a number of ships responded including the giant 285 000-ton oil tanker MT Utah about 300 nautical away and it was decided she would be the most logical choice in terms of expediency. As the 340-metre tanker carrying two million barrels of oil hove to off the island, the ill man and a medical team comprising Topliss and auxiliary nurse Hazel Benjamin were hoisted aboard in a large conical rope basket. The patient was stabilised in the tankerÕs sick bay and kept on intravenous drips and antibiotics for the duration of the six-day voyage to Cape Town. On arrival they were airlifted by helicopter to a waiting ambulance and taken to Groote Schuur Hospital. Drummond is expected to remain in hospital for a least six weeks and there was clearly no way Topliss and Benjamin - a born and bred Saint who has never been off the island in her life - could afford to wait that long (RMS St Helena only arrives back in Cape Town on September 10). The lines started buzzing again, this time between leading clearing agent Peter Meihuizen, m.d. of Meihuizen International and Safmarine resulting in senior line executive Alex de Bruyn giving the nod for the chartered Safmarine Maluti , owned by the company Herm.Dauelsberg, to take the medical team back to the island. In October 1999 the Safmarine container ship Nomzi backtracked 360 nautical miles to evacuate from Saint Helena six-year-old Danni Clifford. The child had been diagnosed with a serious blood disorder and required urgent treatment in Cape Town where she regrettably died. Ten months later the Nomzi, engaged on the Southern Africa-North America service, again diverted to the island to deliver much-needed medical supplies.