That Moment

You know how you see all those photos of children of all ages suffering from malnutrition in national geographic, in the news, or on a NGO website? Well, yesterday I witnessed it firsthand. The moment you see a six-year-old boy with nothing but skin hanging off his bones being fed by his mother and those beautiful brown eyes looking at you longing to be out playing or a little girl suffering from AIDS and malnutrition, that is so severe you can see her pelvis bone as clearly as if was in an anatomy class, you go into somewhat of a shock and disbelief mode but also a desire to help them. To help them be able to play soccer in the field across the street and acting like children. 

All the Peace Corps Health Volunteers traveled to Mulago Hospital in Kampala for an educational day on malnutrition and how to educate the public on fighting it. Mulago was built in 1962 and was once the best teaching hospital in all of Africa and many of the hospitals throughout Africa modeled their programs and buildings off of its design. Well, along comes Ida Amin and since then it has suffered greatly. They are extreme understaffed and their ratio of doctors to people is horrifically off and it is amazing they can provide anyone with accurate care. They do what they can in their situation like many other Ugandans. However, the staff are all extremely dedicated and the care seems to be working for those suffering from malnutrition. After a short introduction of what they were doing and how the different sections work and the roles of the different staff, we walked through the critical care unit for extreme malnutrition and those who are suffering from a combination of malnutrition and other illnesses. The care unit had about 50 cribs all of which had children in them and a few were even on mattresses in the back of the room. Parents are the ones who take care of them, they have to bring everything (buckets, blankets, and so on – they basically live there with the children and on Wednesdays they can go back to their families). It was tight and there  no privacy. The care unit provides the children with different types of foods all packed with calories and healthy things they need to get them up and running again.

We volunteers all did get to have some hands on training with weighing, measuring height and also performing a field test to see if the outpatient children were suffering from malnutrition, kind of like a check up. I was assigned to a nurse who was also a translator for me (kind of frustrating as I didn’t get to speak any language because they don’t speak my language in Kampala its all Luganda). Working with the translator, I spoke with a young mother who was 27-years-old and had three children. The father lived with his other family in Kampala and I am guessing she was a side-dish (very common). The two older children were nine and seven years old. One lived with his grandmother and the other child with her. Her son Alex was one and a half years old and was on his second follow up visit for treating his malnutrition. He didn't have any other illnesses so he was treated at home. The field tests are kind odd to explain but they go around the arm and looks at how wide their arm is and then it is compared to their height. He had put on about a half inch on his arm which was good and he was almost to the green line which means he is almost to a healthy weight. He was a cutie and it was nice to get a chance to have hands on experience that I could use in my community.

One of the many down side of Uganda’s health care system is they have no confidentiality. We as American's are all very aware of this fact and felt very awkward as we walked through the critical care unit and the other units in large groups. What broke my heart was how they treated a group of mothers and their children who were in the "we are about to release you just doing some trainings and follow ups" unit. The nurses there required them to come out and show us "American’s" that “they feed their children” I guess American’s don’t believe their feed their children. Which for those who do seriously come on! In Uganda, you cannot go hungry (unless you're lazy), there is always food okay maybe not so much in the North but elsewhere there is food. It’s just the lack of education on nutrition that causes so many issues. Back to the story… We had to watch them help feed their children and many of us thought “wow this feels like we are at a zoo watching animals feed their young.” I cannot explain how awkward it was. I was talking later with one of the trainers about it and he said they think Americans don’t believe they feed their children and also it might have been because they see an opportunity for a hand out (money). They like their hand outs here. I’m sure the women felt just as awkward having a bunch of white people stand over them like school teachers making sure they do it right. I left shortly after it started and many others did as well, it was very inappropriate in my book. 

It was wonderful to experience that, challenging for many of the volunteers myself included but I saw so much growth from seeing the children in the critical care unit to the ones who were coming back for check ups after being discharged. That was a good feeling.