‘Pam’ a popular name for new babies

PORT VILA – Pam has suddenly a become the trendiest name for new baby girls born in Vanuatu since the country was hit by Cyclone Pam last Friday. The local charity ambulance operation Promedical has been involved with two babies called Pam in the past few days and Australian volunteer paramedic Charlotte Gillon said she has heard of others too. Gillon helped deliver local woman Trisha Ronald’s little girl in the back of the ambulance immediately attending to the birth of another little Pamela. “Just before we got a call to come see Trisha we picked up a newborn baby just outside of Port Vila and she’d already been named Pamela so we dropped her off at hospital and then we got another call.” The next baby was born in the ambulance and her mother decided to call the baby Charlotte Pam – for the paramedic and to mark the cyclone. Young paramedic Charlotte, who has been in Vanuatu for two years under the Australian Volunteers International programme, said that was a great honour, and a bright spot in a challenging week. “It’s wonderful to do a job like this at a time like this when the nation’s grappling with a national disaster and to have a joyful healthy baby girl born is wonderful work.” Promedical is a not-for-profit ambulance service that survives via donations and subscriptions. In the days after the storm, with communications down, manager Michael Benjamin and his staff simply drove around looking for people who needed help. He said the community response to the storm had been inspiring. “The people are just simply amazing. I can’t believe the amount of work that these local people are putting in and how quickly they’ve got the roads clear and electricity on and water on. It’s just pretty impressive.” Having been stretched by the demands after the storm, Promedical has set up a fundraising page so it can continue to provide an effective service. Meanwhile, a week on from Cyclone Pam, communities in Vanuatu are on the brink of running out of food and water as aid agencies and local authorities grapple with meeting the immense need. The Vanuatu government estimates that more than 100,000 people have been made homeless by the storm, and not all communities have yet been reached. Cooper Henry, a school teacher from Northern Effate, said the people were catching and eating flying foxes and birds. “Things are getting expensive, rice, the main food in town, is getting expensive. We are trying to find something else like flying bats, flying foxes – we also ate birds. It’s so sad, they too want to live but somehow since they are under our management so we just have to kill.” Food in Vanuatu comes mostly from small gardens but they have been completely wiped out and will take months or years to re-establish.