At clinic today I had one of those moments. One of those, "I wonder if that child was in the U.S. if they would have lived." My conclusion is most likely, yes.
This woman came to me with her 8 year old daughter talking about non-descriptive "pains, and insomnia." I dug deeper. Something seemed not quite right. Finally, I got from her that 3 months ago her baby died. She was only 3 days old. I asked her how she had died, and the response I got was, "the doctors told me she died because she was yellow." So...the best I can assume is she had jaundice...a severe case. I don't know if she was compromised in any other way, but there the mother sat, still clearly mourning, with tears streaming down her face and only knowing that her baby died because she was "yellow." So, for the next 20+ minutes I talked with her, told her what I thought, let her know that it was NOT her fault, that if she ever had another baby, the odds were it wouldn't happen again and explained to her (most likely) how/why her baby died.
Today was one of those days...I wasn't there to help physical ailments (although I did send 2 people to the hospital, and and gave a lot of antibiotics), the primary reason I was there today - was to meet they emotional needs of one mother who had not had an opportunity to grieve. We cried together, I prayed with her, gave her a hug and sent her on her way.
The other thing I did was a home visit. I visited the family of Teresa - many who have come to Honduras know this sweet family. Teresa's mother suffers from hypertension and diabetes. Teresa called me while I was at clinic saying her mother was bad! I told her - GO TO THE HOSPITAL! She hesitated. She wanted a confirmation that they truly needed to go. After clinic - about 2 hours later - I was able to visit her home. Her mother had suffered a stroke. In the morning, she was walking, eating, talking. Now I looked at her, the entire right side of her body was immobile, she was drooling, and on top of it all - her blood sugar had bottomed out. I quickly started the process of elevating her blood sugar, and advised Teresa that her mother had a stroke, and she was quite sick, and needed to go to the hospital.
The outcomes, in both cases, may have been very different if they had been in the United States. It's the level of medical care here that makes my heart sad. I wait to see if Teresa's sweet mother will even survive this incident or not....
Please pray....
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