Yesterday, I spent all day in bed recovering from malaria. I rested well and had a sweet time with Jesus. It was a good day. But when I went to dinner (I had to eat something with my malaria meds), I learned that Margaret and Dennis had spent a lot of time with an eight month pregnant woman who was very sick.
She came in with significant paralysis on one side of her body. She was sweating profusely and I'm told had an 'impending sense of doom'. This is not good.
What she needed was an immediate cesarean. She needed basic life support and we told her family that this was very serious. She needed to get to a hospital quickly. They listened and then took her home.
Yes. They took her home. I'm not sure if they had the money to get her there. But most people say they don't but they are really saying the won't.
They won't sell a cow. It's too valuable to them.
They chose to take this woman home to die than sell a cow.
Sigh.
This morning they sent someone to tells us that she died early this morning. Had they gotten in a car... gotten to Wau... gotten the emergency care she needed, her life could have been spared.
But instead both she and her baby died.
Why are cows more important than people here? Why?
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Wow. Praying for that family, and praying for you and your malarial needs ;o) Hope you recover quickly!
ReplyDeleteExtremely extremely sad and frustrating to a Westerner, where we value individual life above all else. I suppose with a cow you can contribute wholesome nutrition to a family, yet one deathly ill woman and one yet-to-be-born fetus rather than contributing to the welfare of many family or community members are a drain on resources. Almost inhumanly impossible to understand, but logical by that thinking.
ReplyDeleteThank you for that insight Veronica. I had not seen it that way before. I'm glad you helped me see it from another perspective. That is logical from 'what is best for the whole' rather than the 'individual' perspective found in the States. Yet... still so heartbreaking. Thanks for your comments though ladies.
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