Dr Dan
Photo © Basil Rolandsen (bouvetmedia.com)Doctor Daniel Murphy received his MD from the University of Iowa. He spent six years working with Ceasar Chavez at a clinic for farm workers, where he was involved with legislation against pesticide abuse. He has also worked as a doctor in Mozambique, another former Portuguese colony, as well as in Laos and Nicaragua.
Dr Dan has worked in East Timor since September 1998, although the Indonesian government forced him out after a few months. He returned September 1999 and has been steadfastly working since to provide health care for poor people through the small Bairo Pite Clinic, which he runs on a tight budget in Dili, the country's capital city.
Rebels with the bones of their feet smashed to bits were some of Dr Dan’s first patients when he arrived in East Timor. Scores of them wobbled up to his makeshift medical clinic after they were brutally tortured by the Indonesian army.
The wounds Dr Dan now heals are rarely the result of violence, but medical need in the region is no less urgent. If anything, Dr Dan says, the need is rising; he still treats hundreds of patients a day. He begins seeing patients at 8 in the morning and finishes well after sundown. During that time, he often diagnoses a number of new cases of tuberculosis (TB), a widespread disease in East Timor. TB is not the only struggle his patients face, the list includes malaria, dengue, pneumonia, diarrhoea, hepatitis, encephalitis, yaws, leprosy and HIV. He is also involved with preventive care and assists during births.
Recently, at the Independence Day celebrations, President Dr Jose Ramos-Horta paid tribute to the Bairo Pite Clinic by conferring the country’s highest honour, the Medal of Merit to Dr Dan for services to East Timor.
Dr Dan hopes to start a medical school to train East Timorese physicians and he wants to expand the clinic to meet local needs. This optimism is tempered with the fear that funding will continue to dry up. “I will stay until health care in East Timor is equal to the high quality of care in the west,” he says. “Or until it all falls apart and I am no longer effective.”