TBolt helping poor overseas Published July 9, 2009 By 2nd Lt. Ryan DeCamp 56th Fighter Wing Public Affairs LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. -- If you ask the average American where Zimbabwe is, if the answer includes Africa, that's a good start. One Airman at Luke Air Force Base does not just know where it is, but he is part of a group trying to improve the country's medical care. Maj. Nate Ott, 56th Fighter Wing F-35 Integration Office chief, spent the past week at Karanda Hospital in Mount Darwin, Zimbabwe, working with a group to offer medical care and upgrade equipment. His two-week trip concludes next week. "I think that it's important as members of the United States to go to places that are impoverished and help out," he said. "It's building good will - making sure people understand that America is a country interested in helping people when they're in their most difficult time. We want to be there; we want to be able to help folks." Major Ott is on the board of directors for Physicians Aiding Physicians Abroad, a group that will take ten of its members to the northern region of the country. The team also includes his brother and his father-in-law who founded PAPA. The team includes three doctors who will assist the physicians already there. The seven others, including Major Ott, will build desperately needed medical equipment. They are also bringing $250,000 worth of donated supplies. Though he is the only military member on the team, he will work as a civilian. Major Ott will lead the seven members of the group that will build an incinerator and an autoclave for Karanda. Incinerators destroy old medical supplies and autoclaves use high pressure boiling hot water to sterilize used medical equipment. Both machines will help offer better health care by reducing infections due to unclean hospital conditions. "It's the only hospital within a 75-mile radius that people are able to use," Major Ott said. "There's not really any other government health care in that area." According to the World Health Organization, just over 13 million people live in Zimbabwe. Major Ott says there are roughly 25,000 people in the area that use Karanda Hospital. "People really have an amazing need there," he said. "The level of AIDS, malaria, things like that ... are just phenomenal and the people are just so desperately poor. It's just cool to be able to contribute." WHO figures from 2006 paint a bleak picture for the country. Life expectancy is just 37. Twenty percent of 15 to 49 year olds in Zimbabwe have HIV, which is still two percent better than 2003. Each year, roughly one in 20 people will need medical care for malaria too. "You'll see injured people walk two or three days to get to Karanda," he said. "That's the level of desperation they experience and the level of importance this place has for them." Though Major Ott has gone on these kinds of missions before, they are unlike his deployments to Iraq. "In Zimbabwe, you have to do all the leg work yourself logistically," he said. "You have to figure out what shots to get. When you fly into Harare, the capitol, you have to spend a day buying supplies you'll need for the two weeks because there's no access to food for us." Major Ott is not new to the region. A previous humanitarian project took him to Zambia, which shares Zimbabwe's northwestern border. For more information on PAPA and Major Ott's trip, visit www.papamissions.org.