“Chad? That’s in the desert… isn’t it?” exclaims Tom Spears, remembering his reaction when a country in which he and Mel had never considered serving became the number one option on the table. It was a winsome email from BMS World Mission’s central office that eventually changed his and Mel’s minds. It began: “These are all the reasons we think you should go to Chad,” and ended with: “Pray about it!”

When we spoke to Tom about all this – under a rustling tree canopy on a blustery Chadian winter’s day – it was obvious how God answered that prayer. “BMS has a lot to answer for,” Tom jokes. A few weeks into the family’s time in Chad, these were Tom’s reflections on healthcare, the huge need, and how you can help by supporting Operation: Chad.

Since you arrived in Chad, has anything struck you as being very different to what you expected?

Possibly it’s been slightly easier than I imagined, so far. There’s a good sense of community here… [swats away a fly] Sorry – flies! The flies are more irritating here – there’s not very many of them, but they’re very persistent! Possibly the hospital is slightly different from my experience of working in what I thought was a similar hospital in Nepal before.

There are lots of things that are just much less available or that cost a lot more to obtain here… things like supply of medications, that’s quite a challenge. The cost of being able to give care here is much higher. I’ve grown up with a socialised healthcare system, which is amazing, and which is the kind of paradigm that I feel is right, and that makes sense. And I’m aware that’s just the culture that I’ve come from, and that that just isn’t the reality here in Chad.

We heard stories of patients who travel 500 miles to come to Guinebor II hospital because they know they’ll receive good care here. What do you make of that?

I was speaking to one of the nurse-consultants here who was saying that recently, we’ve had more people coming from further away, lots of people from nomadic backgrounds where it’s very important for them to get back to their livestock. They would rather come here where they know they’re going to get reliably seen and treated.

I know Kalbassou, the Hospital Director – he’s just got such a heart to help people, and he just works such long hours at the moment doing so many operations, and it’s because he wants to keep on helping people… but really, we don’t have the capacity to help the number of people that he or any of us would like to. There’s always going to be a need for more people to help here.

It’s so clear there is huge need in Chad – but at the moment there is also undeniably significant need in the UK. What would you say to BMS supporters thinking carefully about where to invest their giving at a time like this?

We’ve reached a point where people’s expectations of healthcare in the UK are high – and I think that’s a good thing. But, equally, there are many, many other places in the world that have low expectations of healthcare… I’ve got a three-month-old on the ward at the moment with meningitis and in reality, they’ve got a significant chance of dying. But that will be accepted, because children die here, that happens. Whereas in the UK, that’s an outrage, and it’s not just an outrage for the family, it’s a public outrage. A child died – and it is, it’s awful, it’s a tragedy. But this is a ‘normal’ tragedy here…

That’s the reality of life here, that most people have lost a child. And that’s just an example among many things.

What can we in the UK do to help?

There’s a huge amount of inequality in the world, and whilst investing in the NHS is a great thing, and I’m all for that – equally, relatively small amounts of money go considerably further here in making a difference. There’s lots of basic interventions here in Chad that do save lives, and in my mind, that’s a bit of a no brainer. And that’s probably, really, why we’ve come to Chad.

Interview: Hannah Watson
Editor of Engage, the BMS World Mission magazine