(Written on Saturday, January 22) Malaria claimed another life at the hospital – the anaesthetist was called over this afternoon because a five year old went into cardiac arrest. The usual story – the child had been sick for about five days, and by the time he or she arrived here, it was too late to do anything. They had started a blood transfusion, as malaria attacks the red blood cells, leaving its victims as white as azungu - but the transfusion was too late. Nelly was telling me that parents are afraid to bring their children in – the nasal catheters, for example, which are used to tube feed malnourished kids (kids who suffer from Kwashiorkor, a protein deficiency, lose their appetite) – scare people.
I also asked, today, how people bring their dead home from the hospital. I wanted to believe that there was a system in place for that – if not an actual hearse, at least a motorized vehicle.
Nope – few can afford that. The lucky ones may have the use of an oxcart. Alternatively, the mothers will wrap their dead children in the same colourful fabric they carried them to the hospital in, and will carry them home, lifeless, on their backs. Or two people will carry a larger deceased person, back along the same road they walked down, when they first came to the hospital, hoping for a cure.
How can I be living in 2011 and hearing these things? It is beyond sad, past tragic – it’s criminal. After all, I’m only a plane ride away from where these things are unthinkable –ahhh, rather - a world away.
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