Monday, March 30, 2009
She looks like a child herself, doesn't she? This mother is very proud of her beautiful child. The moms were happy when I would ask to take a picture of them and their baby. Some children were so very sick that I couldn't bring myself to ask for a photo. This photo doesn't even come close to telling the story of health care in Haiti.
We often criticize our always rising health care costs. In Haiti you can stay in the hospital for $2. Sounds crazy doesn't it? What I realized is that the families give the care. They bring the food the patient eats. If the patient needs an x-ray, the family has to take them outside the hospital to a place where x-rays are taken. It's the same situation for medicine. The patient gets dressed and the family takes them to a local pharmacy for the medicine they need. You can't even compare our health care system to ours. We pay a great deal of money but look at what we get.
I toured the pediatric unit first and found an intake area followed by a smaller area where healthier children were being cared for. Here I saw three babies that had been abandoned. Because the families are expected to care for their children, the abandoned children were laying or sitting in soiled sheets. Their blessing is that there are health care workers who care enough to give them what they need. One baby layed in a diaper that was overflowing with feces. I wanted so much to grab a diaper and change this beautiful baby. You are tempted to take the children and hug and cuddle them. Given the looks I was getting I felt like an intruder and didn't want to appear critical. In my heart I know that the staff are doing the best they can with what they have. I don't doubt that they care greatly for their patients. They would probably be amazed at what we have here and would wish they had it for their patients. How different their patients' lives would be.
Another section of the peds unit was for children that are malnourished. I felt most uncomfortable in this area of the unit. Here you saw children that looked like they were at death's door. They very well may have been. So many lifeless looking bodies. As beautiful as Haiti is the true story is in what is lacking for these people. When I left the peds unit I didn't want to continue the tour. But if I wanted to get a better sense health care I needed to keep going.
Another unit we went through housed women. One women was happy to show off her newborn twins. A few beds down from her were two women attempting to transfer a young woman from a wheelchair to the bed and failing miserably. One had her ankles and one had her shoulders. The patient was moaning with pain as she was rolled onto the bed. My fear was that in trying to help their family member into bed they could very well have been doing her more harm than good. Again - her family was doing the best they could for her.
There were several buildings on the hospital compound. The buildings are made of cinder blocks and stucco. There aren't windows that keep out dirt or dust. I went in the morning and there were many family members outside looking in at their loved ones. My ride home was a quiet one and it left me with a better understanding of the struggles Haiti has with providing adequate care for the sick.
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