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a tough week
saturday, 30th may, 2009 |
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It has been a really tough week. I wanted to write to everyone as I had just written about baby Odilon and the struggles he had faced so far in his little life. On Thursday afternoon I found out that Odilon had died on Wednesday.
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As you may know from the news I wrote two weeks ago, we had kept Odilon with us for many months, worried about the stories we had heard of babies being starved to death as they were believed to be possessed due to their malformation. We thought that if he had his lip repaired he would be accepted, people not really able to see his cleft palate. We sent him home 2 weeks ago, thinking that his mother had bonded with him, thinking we would see him again in a few months time, thinking that if she had a problem she would come back to us as she knew we would help her.
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On Thursday we got an email from the hospital that was following up with them. When they left here they went straight back to that hospital. We had arranged that the hospital would provide milk for Odilon that we had paid for, and that each week his family would come and get the next week's supply. We did that so that they would not sell the milk but use it for feeding. When they first arrived at the hospital after they left the ship they refused milk and they refused to be hospitalised. They did not return to get more milk a week later. A social worker went out to their home and brought him to the hospital. Odilon had lost 200g in a week. Again the hospital asked for Odilon to be hospitalised and again the family refused. Again the hospital offered them the milk we had paid for and again they refused. On Thursday when they did not come back again the social worker returned once more to their house and found Odilon had died.
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I honestly don't know what to say. The doctor from the hospital said this in her email...
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"It is very sad, but, you know, with people from the villages, such a malformation is seen like a witch child, and people have a lots of problem in their head. The father was not the mother's husband, but just a young irresponsible teenager, the mother is a teenager also, and the family did not try to save the child.... The big problem is social and traditional religion."
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All we have for information is the email from the hospital. We can't talk to the mother, to find out why. All we can guess is that when they got home the pressure from her family and from her village to reject Odilon was too overwhelming for her. What a terrible example of conforming to family/peer pressure.
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I want to be honest and say that I am angry with her. In every thing that happens we have a choice, and she chose. She knew she could come here for help but she didn't. She watched while her child died. I don't understand.
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This is a dark country. A place where starving a baby to death is put down to "traditional religion". It's not that everyone here thinks it is right but no action is taken. This country has paid and continues to pay a heavy price for its deep involvement in Voodoo.
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The price of broken relationships has been big this week. Not only for Odilon but also for another of our patients.
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She came in a few weeks ago, abandoned by her family a few months before. She had been sick for a long time and as far as we could work out she had been found living on the streets by a church who had looked after and tried to restore family relationships. She came to us very unwell. We started her on IV antibiotics, gave her blood transfusions, gave her medication to bring up her blood pressure, tried to control her unstable diabetes that had never been treated. She came to us for an amputation of her leg, with the hope that removing an infected limb would bring her back to good health. Unfortunately after the surgery she did not improve. It seemed like the rejection of her family had taken its final toll - she had lost the desire to live.
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We battled for weeks trying to heal her. We battled with her family too, trying to get them in to see her and when they did come trying to restore their relationship.
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On Tuesday morning she took a turn for the worse, her breathing becoming shallow and she no longer responded to us. We called the family to come in, but they did not come. The next day she was still with us, still holding on. A week before we had insisted that a famliy member was with her in the hospital and her niece had been chosen to stay. When she called on Wednesday morning she lied to her Father, knowing he would not come otherwise - she told him that her Aunt had died. A few hours later he was here, waiting to claim the body. Of course he found her still alive.
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She died a few hours later, peacefully. We washed and dressed her in a beautiful African outfit. We brushed her hair and said goodbye. Then we carried her body out into one of the ship land rovers and watched as they drove away.
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It has been a tough week. An emotionally draining one for many of the doctors and nurses. Broken relationships and not valuing life are very dangerous things. Please pray for these two families, and for the doctors and nurses who cared for them.
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