Carrot Juice

Haiti is a land of anecdotes. Scientists have problems with anecdotes because one or two stories do not constitute science. And I agree. 

But I love anecdotes because they are frequently simple and easy to understand. 

I wrote this in 2005--

Whenever I find a child in one of the clinics in Haiti who suffers from a heart defect, I document the patient's findings and then obtain an echocardiogram. I then place the child on appropriate medication and, if he is a surgical candidate, I take his echo to the United States and attempt to find a medical center to accept the child for surgery. One of the most important tools is the video of the echocardiogram because the cardiologist and surgeon can see the heart moving and can make a better assessment of the problem. If the physicians think they can help the child with heart surgery, it is up to me to coordinate obtaining a visa with his travel and stay in the United States.

 

We usually have 20-30 kids on the Haitian Hearts list that need surgery and many need to come as soon as possible. It can take me up to 3 years (and in one case 7 years) to find a medical center to accept the child for heart surgery. 

Sometimes I haven't got the job done quickly enough.

I will never forget standing in the courtyard of a guest house one morning in the Port au Prince. A lady dressed in black stood off to the side as I talked to multiple other people with medical problems of one type or another. Finally, she made her way over and told me that her son, who I was trying desperately to remember, had been sick and had been an inpatient at the General Hospital (HUEH) in the capital. As she spoke, I suddenly remembered that he was a teenager and that I had taken a picture of him in a hospital in southern Haiti. 

 

The woman told me that one morning while still in the hospital her son said to her, "Mama, I can't do this anymore," and he fell backward in his bed and died. The mother told me this quite dispassionately as I was thinking about how the staph bacteria had eaten away his injured valve and destroyed it.

 

I knew I hadn't worked fast enough and could picture his smiling face very clearly now because his mother was in the photo, too, her face filled with hope. 

I told the mother how sorry I was and she just shook her head and said, "Doctor, do you think I did the right thing? I gave him carrot juice to make him better." I replied that she had done the right thing. And hearing this she just nodded and headed out the gate to start her day.

 

Comments in 2020--

• It all boils down to how much responsibility we want to take for others. That is all there is.