Rinse Meester worked from 2010 to 2012 as AIGT/MD Global Health in the rural north of Congo Brazzaville. Pokola, the little town in the jungle where he was based, has a medical health post, offering medical facilities to 30.000 Congolese people. Rinse’s work consisted of diagnosing and treating (tropical) infectious diseases, supervising mother&child care, performing surgical procedures, conducting ultrasounds, hospital logistics and out-of-hospital care for HIV patients. He was involved in local public health programs aiming to prevent common infectious diseases such as malaria and HIV and has been on local television and radio to raise awareness about these programs. Rinse is currently back in the Netherlands. He is in the fifth year of his residency to become an orthopaedic surgeon. Rinse remains committed to improve surgical care for marginalized populations: he is member of the Netherlands Society for International Surgery, one of the initiators of the Amsterdam Declaration for Essential Surgical Care and member of the Global Alliance for Surgical, Obstetric, Trauma, and Anaesthesia Care (The G4 Alliance).
The Amsterdam Declaration for Essential Surgical Care is accessible via:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00268-015-3057-x
For more information about the NSIS and the ‘G4’-alliance, visit:
http://www.surgicalneed.nl
http://www.theg4alliance.org
Then (2010-2012):
Photo 1: Rinse and a local assistant perform a surgical procedure in Pokola, Congo
Photo 2: Staff in the pharmacy in Pokola
Now (2016):
Rinse and collegues at a congress of the ‘G4’-alliance in Geneva