Cope vs. hope

Disease, poverty, and corruption require daily push against passivity | Jennifer Myhre

Illustration by Krieg Barrie; photos courtesy Jennifer Myhre

Much of life as a missionary and a physician in a rural, poor, marginal, and probably corrupt place involves push. By this I mean the extra effort required to make the system work the way it should. One could simply go the hospital, do what one can do, and throw up one's hands about the rest. Which is, after many years of stress and defeat, the passive way that many of our colleagues cope. And me too, some days.

But not today. As soon as I walked on the ward, I found out that my newest admission had died at 2 a.m. This was an extremely ill child with sickle cell disease and severe acute malnutrition, who had come on death's doorstep. Worrisome, but we've seen many similar kids revive. Only this time, the person who promised to bring the blood needed for transfusion never showed up, and no one noticed or did anything about it. I called him today, and he said the district had refused to pay for his transport, because all its funds were frozen due to failure of our entire district to pay taxes for who-knows-how-many years (and who-knows-where that money went).