Grandma and Baby--June 2015

Photo by John Carroll

The lady above brought her grand baby to the outpatient clinic at St. Catherine’s Hospital in Cite Soleil yesterday afternoon. Her daughter, the mother of the little girl, is dead. This malnourished baby has been having fever, diarrhea, and cough. (It seems like nine out of ten babies in Soleil have these problems right now.)

Grandma obviously loves her grand baby very much. With a determined look on her face she struggled slowly up the stairs while carrying the baby. She is dirt poor and barely could pay a few cents for the outpatient clinic visit. The entire inpatient pediatric ward at St. Catherine’s has only four patients…all newborns with serious problems.

The reason for so few patients in the outpatient clinic and so few admitted to the hospital is that people cannot afford even a few dollars for basic services for their children. To be admitted to the hospital costs about $10 US. Families are then expected to pay for medication, IV set ups and fluid, and oxygen if needed. They simply cannot pay so many people don’t bring their own sick children in the first place. (We see much malnutrition in Soleil also because people cannot afford to even feed their children.)

In addition to financial constraints for hundreds of thousands of people here, there is persistent shooting between gangs in the different zones in Soleil. This scares people and they hide inside at home with sick ones to avoid the bullets.

I am quite convinced that the vast majority of babies and children in Soleil would be successfully treated and cured of their acute medical problems if just basic medical services were offered to everyone in Soleil at no cost to them. Many pediatric lives could be saved each week. (And if we wanted to get serious about health care in the slum, the severity of most of these childhood diseases could be prevented in the first place by addressing poverty and lack of societal infrastructure.)

Until basics are the priority in Soleil and peace comes to the streets here, there is no end in sight for people like this baby and her grandma.

John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org