Issue no 2, 1999 -- English edition -- home
Page: -- Contents -- 1, 2, 3, (4), 5, 6, 7, 8
| Lucky the doctor was there. Boy with ear inflammation was cured. |
In a long and in part depressing report, surgeon Christen Henriksson, from Hovås, Sweden, describes an assignment for the Doctor Bank in the Central African Republic (RCA). He there worked at a hospital run by a Swedish mission organization in Gamboula. Here is an extract (the full report is available from the Doctor Bank offices):
"The country is one of the world's poorest, often for good reason called 'the developing country of the developing countries'. The surface area is about the same as France, and there are 3 million inhabitants, most living in the South and South-West. Large areas of the East and North-East are largely uninhabited, only visited by weapons smugglers and poachers."Instead of development, there is regression. Roads, bridges, communications, heath care, education, economy and business, all are in decay. The state-run hospitals as a rule lack both doctors and supplies.
"There is no daily newspaper in the country. A weekly is published sporadically, but its content is controlled by the government.
"Mail to and from Europe can take months, assuming it even reaches the addressee. Mail employees go without salary for long periods. They compensate by stealing mail. Mail bags that have long collected dust without getting any further are burned."
"Here there has been a Swedish mission since the 1920s, with a hospital since the 1960s. The church is white, beautiful in its simplicity, large and airy. The church bell, made of a rusty truck wheel rim hung in a simple steeple frame, rings with a full sound."Past the church there is a small weed-covered churchyard where rest five Swedish missionaries. Currently, there are three Swedish and one American missionary families here."
"The hospital was during my stay constantly full or overcrowded with patients diagnosed with non-surgical ailments, mainly infected children and tuberculosis cases. The number of surgical cases was relatively small - unclear why - a total of 41 operations during my time there."The reception area is large, reaching far into Cameroon. Patients could come from Chad in the North, and from Congo-Brazzaville in the South."
Dr Christen Henriksson concludes his report by noting:
"Working in Central Africa makes greater demands on patience and humbleness than in East Africa. The level of development is lower and the poverty deeper. The risks for life and health are greater."
Despite this, Christen Henriksson thanks the Doctor Bank for, as he puts it "being able to make this contribution, admittedly minimal, in one of the world's least developed countries".
One of the Doctor Bank's very enthusiastic doctors, Åse Berg, from Stavanger, Norway, gives thanks, along with Dag Helliksen, for News from the Rotary Doctor Bank. At the same time, however, they come with the admonishment: Why do you only use first names for the native Africans, but both first and last names for the Europeans? They feel that both "parts" should be treated equally.
"There are a number of examples of this in the previous issue," says Åse Berg and points to no less than five occurences.
Åse Berg is of course completely right about this. We will correct this bias. The most natural would perhaps be to use only first names for everyone. I doubt that anyone in Africa says other than "Doctor Åse" to Åse Berg, "Doctor Sture" to Sture Nyholm, and so on. One major reason for this of course is that family names in both African and Nordic languages are often difficult to pronounce if one does not speak the language. We shall try to give full names for everyone in future. However, then everyone who sends in reports and pictures must also provide the full names, and spell them correctly!
"The hospital panorama is marked by poverty, poverty, and yet more poverty. Practically every woman has deficiency diseases due to undernourishment. Hookworm infections are common. Serious anaemia is more or less the rule among those admitted. Malaria strikes 99 percent of the populations, and cerebral malaria is common, especially during pregnancies."
This is an extract from a report by gynaecologist Rose-Marie Holst, from Gothenburg, Sweden, who recently returned from serving on the island of Pemba in the Indian Ocean, where the Doctor Bank has long had a gynaecologist relay.
Rose-Marie Holst continues:
"I had previous experience of developing country health care from Mexico and Brazil, and so had no expectations of accomplishing great deeds. Even so, the meeting with Chake Hospital on Pemba was very traumatic and frustrating because of the total lack of functional health care organization. Against poverty, poor staff policy, and the religion's power over the individual's view on human life, there is little one can do. At the hospital, there is a lack of almost everything that is part of basal health care."
Is there then no hope?
"Yes, I believe so," replies Rose-Marie Holst and takes up a number of suggestions that the Doctor Bank board will consider.
Dr Sven Bobeck, who is co-opted member of the Doctor Bank board, works continuously on finding improvements to the situation for the gynaecologist work on Pemba. It would be a bitter failure to abandon these women in a Muslim society. They would then lack practically all medical help.
"I am a doctor and Rotarian, and many times I have had a bad conscience for not responding to the Doctor Bank call for help,"
writes Rolf Bengtsson, from Vännersborg Brätte RC, Sweden, and continues:
"I have most of what any person can want. When I celebrated 60, I said that I did not want any presents, but I knew that fund raising was going on. I advertised that everything that came to me would be donated to the Doctor Bank. Now I send via postal giro 7000 Crowns, which I hope will come to good use, and wish you continued success in the idealistic work you do"
Thank you very much. We all have birthdays, so a good tip is: postal giro account 900472-2.