Wednesday Evening Reflections

I write what day it is because what day it is and what day this blog gets loaded never go hand-in-hand. In order to even attempt to use the Internet, we must have our friend Musa who is “housesitting” for the missionary family below us), (or Ajit who now knows how to do it), turn on the generator (no small feat), and then we have to get everything plugged in just to see if we have Internet access. We can try 3 or 4 times over a period of two days before actually having success.

Today was a day I will not soon forget. I am forever moved by what I have seen today, and I will attempt, in whatever way I can, to put it into words for you.

At 10 a.m., JB and I were sitting outside of Faith Alive, waiting for Dr. Chris. The medical school he works at has gone on strike (again) and he is not allowed to teach. However, his friends from the USA are not being paid and can volunteer. So JB was going to teach a class.

As we waited, I saw a man, out of the corner of my eyes, standing at the side entrance. His shirt was covered with blood. Shortly thereafter he fell to the payment. I immediately began pounding on JB but not really able to formulate what to say. JB jumped up and ran inside. He had no gloves and also was not for sure that Faith Alive could handle this emergency. I walked over to the man as JB and Dr. Chris returned and saw that his hand was barely attached. Apparently, he had been using dynamite for work and it had gone off in his hand. I have never seen anything like this.

Dr. Chris immediately told the driver preparing to take us to JB’s lecture to instead take the man to the nearest “big” hospital … Juth. It is Dr. Chris’ hope that they will soon have a surgery area again. However, customs currently has most of his instruments, refusing to let them go do to “paperwork” issues. Dr. Chris also made sure that the three friends who brought the man to Faith Alive, went with him to the hospital. He was adamant about this point. JB was basically unable to help without any extra gloves. There was blood all over, and therefore he and Dr. Chris relied on his friends to load him into the car.

When we finally found a second vehicle to head to Juth ourselves, Dr. Chris explained the situation. Juth is not a free hospital. Not even for emergencies. They would require a deposit of about $100 USD before they would even see the man. Even the missionary hospital, Evangel, not far from us, requires this payment. Without it, they would go under. This man’s friends had to go to make sure that the man was not left to die on the doorstep. If he had friends, they could go and collect money and maybe even sell some of the man’s things to get him help. This, literally, made me feel sick to my stomach. They would let the man die before they would help him without a deposit. Dr. Chris did tell us that if the man had come alone, Faith Alive would have paid the deposit. This was a relief.

After JB’s lecture (which was GREAT!), Dr. Chris took Ajit, JB, and me on a tour of Juth. This is a large hospital. However, the conditions were beyond deplorable. It was absolutely the most stomach-turning thing I have ever seen. There is no such thing as privacy. Ten or twenty patients could easily fill a room. They are given no food or water. If they eat or drink, it is because their family members are outside in one of the grassy areas, making them food or buying them water. A filthy pillow sat on one of the examination tables and a young boy laid naked on a ripped table. When we went into the ICU, they asked us to remove our shoes. I thought this a bit ironic as our hands were not washed. Shoes are seen as very dirty but hands are not as big of a focus-point. One patient lay dead under a blanket. Another three patients were victims of a tanker spill earlier that week. We had seen the remnants of this spill on our way back from the rural clinic. People had scattered to collect the gas to sell, when the tanker exploded. These three patients were burned over 50% of their bodies. One was six months pregnant. They had bandages on but nothing else was being done for them. In the US we complain when people have tubes going everywhere. Here, there are no tubes. Their dressings were only changed if the family members paid money to have them changed. I thought of people like my cousin Sarah’s cousin Erica who survived bacterial meningitis with the most amazing care. If she had lived here, what would have happened?

When Dr. Chris told the ICU nurses (who were very nice – despite the deplorable conditions, the people who work in these places seem very kind) that we were from Mayo Clinic “the best healthcare center in the world”, one of the nurses said, “Better than Nigeria?” Dr. Chris just repeated his statement. Could they seriously think this was good? I would, honestly, be horrified to have to be in the hospital here. It was gut wrenching.

We weaved our way through the ER until we found the man who had come to Faith Alive earlier that day with the hand injury. He was sitting on a table, with a basic IV for fluids, waiting for his friends to return with money. They had wrapped his wounds but would not do anything else until the money showed up. This was so frustrating! They were losing time to try to reattach the man’s hand, a hand he, obviously, used to make a living. Dr. Chris spoke with a doctor who said that this would most likely be an amputation. Dr. Chris asked him to please have the plastic surgeon look at it. “I will help with the bill,” he said. Whether they will try to save the hand or not is something I may never know. But I do know that this man’s place of birth will most likely determine whether he has two hands or one for the rest of his life. I did not know how to make sense of this.

At some point, I will try to get some of Ajit’s photos from the hospital and post them on the blog so you can see just what I am talking about. I felt so unbelievably fortunate and so amazingly helpless at the same time. Death and suffering seems to be just a matter of where you are born. If you could picture the worst hospital in all of the US, you would still be a gazillion steps away from what I saw today. If there was a word bigger than gazillion, I would use it.

I’ll just leave it at that. There really isn’t anything else to say.

… on a completely ‘nother topic, thank you for the prayers for our health. I am feeling GREAT. The other four members have all taken a good hit of some pretty torn-up stomachs. I think Tara took it the worst. But I feel fantastic. There was also a sort of “monsoon” experience that moved in today. While it never rained very hard, things started blowing all OVER the place. Since it had been so long since it rained, the dust was overwhelming. The good thing about this was, things GREATLY cooled off!!!

Oh and other good news … we got our luggage today!!!!!! It was like Christmas in our guest house. Included in the missing bags was a $60,000 ultrasound machine. It is here and safe and sound. I’ll have to post pictures later featuring Dr. Chris, in our living room, checking out JB’s heart. He was unbelievably thrilled and relieved (although he didn’t share with us how nervous he had been that the box wouldn’t arrive, until it arrived safely) that the machine made it to Nigeria!!!

Blessings.