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This graphic description of the
plight and the deplorable conditions of the children at Black
Lion Specialized Hospital in Addis Ababa is truly
heart-wrenching. Sadly children throughout the entire country
of Ethiopia are facing similar obstacles in obtaining adequate
healthcare. The Ethiopian North American Health Professionals
Association (ENAHPA) is attempting to help alleviate the
profound healthcare crisis in Ethiopia. It our hope that
everyone in the Ethiopian diaspora and friends of Ethiopia will
join the crusade to make a difference. With your permission, I
would like to circulate your email to the ENAHPA membership or
post it on our website (www.enahpa.org).
Please respond and let me know if this alright with you. In the
meantime, I invite you to visit our website, fill out our
membership form and to become involved in the work of ENAHPA.
Best Wishes
Ingida Asfaw, MD
President and Founder, ENAHPA
There are
things which must cause you to lose your reason, or you have
none to lose”
I recently visited the pediatric
casualty ward of
Black Lion Hospital. The
images I encountered there will remain with me forever.
Despite being one of the largest hospitals in the
country, conditions are absolutely horrifying; the peeling white
and yellow paint provides little contrast from the grey and
dirty concrete floors and corridors marked by puddles of urine,
vomit and other unidentifiable fluids. There are no fans in
sight, and the foul stench of body odor, urine and disease is
staggering. Though there seemed a minimum of 14 to a room, I saw
no curtains or masks to divide those with malaria, HIV or
dysentry from those with acute respiratory infections or other
contagious diseases.
Where there are cribs they are, for the most part, in varying
stages of unacceptable disrepair—the matresses are stained and
torn and the rusted rails most often no longer close. The rest
of the infants and young children are forced to lie wherever
there is room (most without blankets) on dirty wooden benches or
on the floor on makeshift cardboard mats. I saw three infants
lying perilously on a surface resembling the stainless steel
trays used in the West for holding the sterile equipment of
surgeons.
Family members who
are unable to afford accomadation within the city have no choice
but to sleep on the floor beneath or beside their dying young.
The presence of doctors, nurses and interns are scarce—one
anxious father reported that he had not seen his child’s doctor
in over seven days. A mother begged me for water to give to her
dying child, as another struggled desperately to give her
newborn child medicine from a glass, due to the apparent absence
of baby bottles or eye droppers in the ward. I saw a ‘cast’ made
of duct tape, cardboard and a plastic bag worn by a tiny patient
who lay wimpering on the floor with an IV attached to his head.
I was told that in this hospital, infants suffering from a
specific liver condition are placed directly underneath 100-watt
bulbs, apparently for some kind of improvised treatment—an
incredibly painful and dangerous procedure which on its own can
cause blindness and severe burns.
Before leaving, I spoke briefly with a foreign intern who
explained with a defeated sigh that every day they was forced to
carry out medical procedures for which they were unqualified,
because there is “simply nowhere to turn for help”.
Hope seemed, for the most part, absent from this ward; I was
told most children would not live to see e following week.
(Annual Federal Health Expenditure: 4.9%)
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