On Wednesday of last week we finally made it back down to Port au Prince to have Baba (Papouche as we now fondly call him) examined by the doctor in the ENT’s office.
We had organized a sort of agreement with one of the nurses in the clinic at PAP General Hospital the week before, so when we called, she was waiting with his dossier (preliminary paperwork essentially) in hand. As we entered, I was struck by the apparent chaos in the clinic. An ENT’s office is not typically a place of emergency by nature, yet upon entering, I would have thought I was walking into an ER experiencing an influx of train wreck patients. The patients who were waiting to see the doctor were placed in a waiting room behind a barred door. Unfortunately, this proved to be a necessary precaution. People pushed their way to the barred door and constantly begged for admittance from the guard who told them there was a protocol that must be followed; they would have to wait their turn.
Because we are Americans, we were given special privilege and allowed to wait outside of the barred waiting room. Our dossier was also given priority. Despite these exceptions, our trip still took three and a half hours. After our two-hour wait, we entered the examination room with Papouche. To say the least, he was apprehensive of what the doctor was about to do. I was astonished when the doctor simply pulled back on his ear, looked in, and reported to us that everything was A-OK. He hadn’t so much as asked what was wrong with the boy. Brittany and I, at this point quite frustrated with the man, explained that just a few days before there had been blood and visible scarring in his right ear and that he has been deaf since birth. I pointed to the otoscope and explained that it was necessary to use it in order to get an accurate picture of what was going in the ear. I’m not entirely sure he appreciated my input, but he cooperated with my request all the same. Once again, he reported no problems. An audiogram, he said, was what we needed. All we needed to do was hop across the hall to the hearing booth. Perfect! With information derived from an accurate audiogram, I could fit him with a hearing aid and begin the road to therapy.
The key word in that sentence is “accurate”. I got my audiogram, but I’m not sure I am any more confident in the results than I would have been if Noah had conducted the test. Not only did was the machine itself quite out-of-date, but the technician appeared to know little about how to complete an audiogram. Dr. McNamara would have been sorely disappointed! After she was finished, I explained that I was a student and would appreciate the opportunity to practice conducting the test myself. Although she argued it was a lost cause since he couldn’t hear anything, she obliged to allow me to try. Unfortunately, by this point, we had lost all concentration from Papouche.
After finishing in the booth, we were directed back to the examination room where the doctor told us there was nothing they could do and signed our paperwork. As we left, I noticed that women, men, and children who had arrived before we had appeared to be no closer to seeing the doctor that they were hours before. The nurse “filed” our paperwork in a stack of manila folders about three foot high and we were on our way.
Our trip to the hospital was a shocking and eye-opening experience. I was alerted to the harsh realities of the Haitian medical system. I cannot imagine waiting like that for a day-to-day examination, much less to address a more immediate need.
Tonight during prayer, Becca read an excerpt from In the Parish of the Poor, a book by former President Aristide. This excerpt described a scene from the 1980s where a woman was unable to access the medical care she required during her pregnancy due to her own poverty and the poverty of the greater country. I was struck by the truth that, in Haiti, the scene seemed timeless. How sad it was to realize that since his writing, the country has not seemed to advance. The scene he described is just as common today as it was all those years ago. Healthcare is but one example of this.
This pushed me to another important realization. As we push to help Haiti advance in healthcare, we bring in the newest technology – those things that help us to make miraculous discoveries and recognize problems earlier and earlier – yet we often fail to recognize and address the overall lack of knowledge needed to organize and run an effective clinic. The problem is greater, so much greater. We hear of the brain drain from Haiti. This is the problem that must be addressed. In order to improve the state of the country, there must be a way established to keep the best minds, the most driven and ambitious individuals, in Haiti. We can do nothing until we can help them to do that.
So we must walk in solidarity with them. Not simply give in terms of donations, fundraising, and work. We must walk with them, show them how to improve their lives, and teach them the background knowledge needed to troubleshoot when a problem arises. It really all goes back to the idea of solidarity. Aristide writes:
“In a dark corner of our little world, I take up my pen to write to you. The light I set by my side to illuminate my task is a faint light, but an unwavering one. It will grow stronger as I write, because it is the light of solidarity, and as you read this letter, too, the same light that is by your side will grow in intensity, because the light of solidarity is the one beacon that we the oppressed have to light our way through the dark corners and byways of our little world. If we hold that torch ahead of us, we will never stray from our path, though our road is long and weary and filled with obstacles. The force of solidarity at work is a recognition that we are all striving toward the same goal, and that goal is to go forward, to advance, to bring into this world another way of being. That new way of being can be brought into this world through solidarity.”
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