Eyes Only Slightly Open

Mike Ferris, the Treasurer for the Malawi Project, continues his narrative concerning his first visit to a Malawi hospital. “I was moving from place to place in a hospital in the central region of Malawi. Each new area of the hospital held more stunning revelations about medical care in a third world country. It was hard to comprehend, and I was seeing it first hand. I knew it would be impossible to fully express what I was seeing when I got back to the states. Then I saw him at the far end of the ward area. He had only recently walked from one of the villages in this mountainous district of Malawi in order to admit his baby. The child was severally dehydrated, and the nurse was administrating an IV solution while he was waiting for the doctor to see his child. A close look, and it was easy to see that the child’s eyes were only slightly open. He was not at all full of life as you would expect from a child his age. I will remember for a very long time how the child looked; not moving, not responsive, not even reacting to the activity around him. There was a look of anguish on his father’s face. the father looked ill as well, but there was little time for anything except his son. The father had no shoes, and wore an old, tattered shirt. He just sat there holding his baby’s hand.”

No Oxygen Available

“I then moved to a bed holding another small child. The nurse said this child as suffering from pneumonia. I could feel his fever as I moved my hand closer and closer to this child’s head. His struggle was evident from the perspiration around his mouth and nose, and from the sound of rasping coming from his lungs. Though it was bad, he was not considered critical enough to be placed on the hospital’s limited oxygen supply. There was only one oxygen generator, and it could only hold three patients at a time. I remember the sadness on the mother’s face, as she seemed to worry about what could happen next. I felt a great urge to reach for the nearest stethoscope, draw on my clinical background, and start shouting orders, and do something that could help these children. As a parent I want my children to have the best care they can get. In America I have several hospitals from which I can choose locally, and that is not to mention our ability to hop on a plane and take them anywhere in the United States. With our resources we have the greatest chance that our children will have full and complete recoveries. I would spare no expense for their care. As I looked at this mother I knew she wanted the same thing for her child. Unfortunately, she is in a part of the world where she had to carry her children many miles to the only hospital within 40 or 50 miles, and even here she would find only limited care, and limited supplies and equipment. This could have been me had God had a different plan, and given me a different set of life circumstances.”

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“Visiting Malawi for the first time I was unsure what to expect,”

“We left the capital city going south. The landscape was breathtaking, and I could hardly wait to experience it all. As we entered the trading center the streets were lined with people selling their wares. I could hardly believe there could be so many people in such a small area. Turning off the main road we headed down a bumpy, partially paved road into the gated entrance to the hospital. As we pulled up in front of the hospital it was crowed with people sitting around outside waiting to be seen by a medical person. What hit me almost immediately was the smell. It was like rotting flesh and urine, and it seemed to follow us all along the hallway. ‘Oh God,’ I pleaded silently, ‘please do not let me get sick over here, so far from home. How could there be a place like this in such a beautiful country of such beautiful people?’

“We went into the kitchen, and found there was only one spigot for cooking water, and rinsing hands for food preparation. There were only two cooks, and they were busy preparing meals that would be carried into the main hospital in buckets transported in old wheelchairs. By no means was this kitchen sanitary by western standards, and it was very clear we  were not in a western hospital.”

“Back in the states, just before leaving for Africa, we were preparing for our accreditation audit at my hospital. One of the rules relative to the storage of medical supplies is that nothing can be stacked nearer than 18 inches from the ceiling. It must be neat and orderly, with everything plainly labeled. But, as we entered the central stores I found myself in a totally different world. Due to the lack of funding, and adequate building materials this hospital’s central supply area resembled one big stack of boxes stacked as high as one can reach. It appeared to be in no certain order. I kept thinking, ‘How does one find anything in this mess?’

“As we walked to the main building I noticed the pot-hole laden driveway, and thought of those poor mothers coming in an ox cart or ambulance to give birth. They would be bounced all over the place. Again, the plight of poverty in Malawi was beyond imagination from the perspective of a westerner in this strange land.”

“Next, we reached the children’s ward. We were greeted by a friendly, warm, smiling charge nurse. As we talked she described the critical shortage of medications. They dilute their IV medications, a common practice across the land, by as much as 10 to 1. Most of the patients suffer from pneumonia, some with complications from HIV, and others with malaria and malnutrition.”

“Two of my favorite memories come for the children’s ward. The first was a young boy when I squatted down beside his bed. He had never seen a white person before. He reached out and took my hand. It seemed for a minute that he was saying, ‘I’m glad you are here. Thank you for visiting.’ He looked in wonderment at me. His little eyes sparkled as he took my hand. I remember how soft his hands were, yet I could feel each bone in his tiny fingers. Being careful not to squeeze too hard, I took his hand between my fingers and just held his hand for what seemed like the afternoon. I did not say a word, but we communicated a great deal.”

“The second moment was a young girl sitting on the floor, a complete no-no by western standards. But it was perfectly alright in this part of the world. She was suffering from dehydration and malnutrition due to the Cholera outbreak throughout the nation. I remember getting down by her and clapping every time she took a drink. The fluid in her cup as said tot be liquid nutrition. However, it resembled warm milk that had been left on the counter too long, and was beginning to curdle. Even the smell turned my stomach. But this was what she needed to drink to replenish herself. She had not been drinking that day. To my wonderment every time I clapped she took a sip, and it became a game to her. I was happy to play with her.”

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Desire to be Doctors

“Of all the things that happened on our most recent trip to Malawi there is one moment when three lives crossed paths that I won’t easily forget,” recalls Richard (Dick) Stephens of the Malawi Project. “It was the day two boys stopped to talk while on their way to school on the outskirts of Thondwe. It was around 7:30 in the morning, and I met them on a path that intersects with the Namikango Maternity Hospital on one side and the Zomba road on the other. They were excited to talk with a visitor, and immediately stopped when they realized I would take time to talk with them.”

“As is often the case they wanted to know about me, about where I had come from, and what I was doing in Malawi. I briefly explained about the Malawi Project, and its various programs, and that I had come from America. This brought into focus a long explanation about what it is like in America. There is a deep sense of longing in this part of Africa to know about America. They look up to the ‘Europeans’ as they refer to all of us with European decent, and almost without exception all want to visit or live in America. They see it as the goal out of the poverty in which they find themselves mired.”

“I turned the attention to them and what they are doing and plan to do.”

“We are in school,”the one closest to me explained, “and we want to become doctors.”

“I complimented their goal, and after a few minutes of conversation it was time for them to leave. I watched them walk away down the path. In a nation with 13 million people, with a reported total of less than 100 Malawi doctors, I cannot imagine a nobler goal. But too, I know they will face critical threats to their health and survival if they go into the medical profession. They will have far too few protective measures to shield themselves from the diseases they are trying to treat. Too, they will feel the frustration with having unbelievable shortages of even the most basic medical supplies. As if that is not enough they won’t get paid very much, and there will be little chance of a foreseeable change in that status. As they walked on down the path I felt an urgency to get on with our mission. They didn’t ask for anything. They were on the way to do it themselves.”

“It would seem the least we can do by the time these two boys become doctors is to give the country the resources to change their destitute medical situation. I hope so, for the sake of these two boys, and 13 million other people.

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Family Caregivers at Malawi Hospital Cook for Patients

An Emergency in Africa

It was 11:30 PM when the telephone rang, Suzi picked up the receiver and after a lengthy conversation hung up and explained the call.

“It was a call from the Vice President of Malawi. She expressed her regrets that she had to call so late, but with us leaving for the states in the morning it was important that she communicate with us before our departure.” Suzi went on to explain the “emergency”, as I thought back over our time with the Honorable Joyce Banda, the Vice President.

We had known the week before, after showing the VP the new V-Tractor, that she had gone north for a four or five day fact-finding tour of the hospitals. She especially wanted to see the conditions women were facing when they went to the hospitals to deliver their children. Months before Malawi had put into effect a campaign to encourage the village women to travel to the hospitals in order to deliver. It was hoped this would impact the high mortality rate among deliveries in the rural, village areas. What the Vice-President found was not what she wanted to see, and it was the reason for the emergency call.

In Malawi there are reported to be less than 100 Malawi doctors and no more than 3,000 nurses for a population of 13,000,000 people. Hospitals run critically short of supplies, and are often unprepared for women coming to deliver.   It is not unusual to see birthing areas filled with women who must bring their own plastic trash bags in order to have something to deliver on.  There are no cooking facilities in most hospitals, and not enough shelter for the caregivers to get inside from inclement weather. Thus, all around the grounds of most hospitals are large numbers of people, “camping out” in order to care for the patients.

With the recent campaign to persuade more women to come to the hospital to deliver the problem has been compounded. What the Vice-President found on her trip north was facility after facility overrun with pregnant mothers soon to deliver and caregivers everywhere. The hospitals cannot get everyone inside the overcrowded buildings, and they are sleeping all over the grounds outside. The rains have started and all over Malawi pregnant women and family members are laying on the ground in the wet, muddy conditions.

She needs help from us and she needs it quickly. These women are facing hardships they have done nothing to deserve.  ( See Additional Photos)

In the time since we arrived in the states, we find our nation trying to cope with the crisis in Haiti, and our own economy. Meanwhile it is raining nearly every day with heavy monsoon rains, and there are women laying on the wet ground, praying for someone to help them. And the Vice President is also looking for someone, somewhere who will help the women of Malawi.

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