My first experience was when my colleague got malaria and hospitalized for 3 days – they could have given him pills and send him home but it was far more lucrative to have him hospitalized and given intravenous medication since he has a health insurance plan that will pay for it. However they did not provide any meals – and it was a private clinic/hospital. You are sick and feeling very weak and alone – and you have no food or drink for the duration unless you can get someone to go fetch something for you – that is if someone is around when you’re awake and not in too much pain to be able to ask or even have the wits to ask.
But that is such a mild case compared to what a couple who are both VSO volunteers (both nurses) with 3 children and a maid, living in Bobo-Dioulasso, are experiencing. Their 3 year old got very ill a few weeks ago and either the hospital they showed up at did not have a doctor on hand or the hospital was so filthy you were sure to come out worst off – so being a nurse the mother went to several pharmacies to find medication to give her daughter – at least to reduce the high fever. She spent 4 hours running around Bobo at night to find a clinic or a hospital with a doctor and could not find one. It took many more days of bickering between nurses and doctors and clandestine interventions by the parents to finally get Manu back at home in a healthy state.
Now this same family is trying to help a friend who found out 2 weeks ago she was HIV + and since last Thursday has been fainting regularly – they think it may be a cerebral haemorrhage but could be something else. Since this person is Burkinabè she cannot be evacuated out of the country but she is in a very precarious situation. The public hospitals again are filled with incompetent nurses and condescending doctors who do nothing to help a patient unless they pay first and then the patient or family or friends need to go buy everything for the treatment – and there is no pharmacy in the hospital. Here is a little description of how it is written by one of the nurses in Bobo:
« Les patients ici doivent fournir literie, repas, papier de toilette, eau, thermomètre, etc. Ils doivent se déplacer sans arrêt pour aller chercher un nouveau soluté, un nouveau médicament, payer la radio, etc. À l’extérieur des chambres, la mère prépare le repas du malade, sa sœur nettoie son linge, son oncle part payer les factures médicales. Sans famille ici, un malade grave passera des jours dans un lit sans drap dans lequel il chiera, faute de bassine, d’aide, de toilette à portée. Il mourra de faim aussi. Et ne pourra renouveler son soluté C’est comme ca, il n’y a aucune empathie envers le malade. »
So now she is on her way to Ouaga to meet a neurologist and hopefully get treated. This story is not finished but hopefully the horror is.
I hope to God I do not get sick here – because I am alone.
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