Friday, November 19, 2004
We Just Did the Things That Needed Doing: Surgery in War-Torn Ivory Coast
... Even more checkpoints awaited them in Bouake, almost every hundred yards, as the group drove through trash-strewn streets to the 350-bed teaching hospital where Frank would be the only general surgeon for the next month.
In times of peace, Bouake is a city of half a million people. But since civil war turned it into a front line in September, nearly two thirds of the people fled, including a good portion of the staff for the city's only hospital - a void in emergency medical care that [Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)] is trying to fill.
"The city was half-deserted," Frank said. "You could tell something had happened there." ...
After an hour of fitful sleep, he woke to the sound of gunfire. He stumbled out of bed and asked the guard what was going on.
"He said, 'It's nothing. Either target practice or they're celebrating New Year's.'"
In such a hospital setting, a fine line separates those who live and those who die. There were several post-operative deaths Frank is sure would have been prevented had the hospital been functioning properly ...
"That one was a tough to take," Frank said. "Because we looked like we were bringing him back from the edge of the abyss. And then a day and a half later to lose him was just sort of a major setback for everybody. We just felt deflated. You felt that Darwin was part of our triage. If you were lucky enough to get there soon enough with the right injury we could help you. But if you stepped beyond that line… You see the precariousness of existence. How lucky or unlucky you can be depends on where you are or where you happen to be at the wrong time."
... Even more checkpoints awaited them in Bouake, almost every hundred yards, as the group drove through trash-strewn streets to the 350-bed teaching hospital where Frank would be the only general surgeon for the next month.
In times of peace, Bouake is a city of half a million people. But since civil war turned it into a front line in September, nearly two thirds of the people fled, including a good portion of the staff for the city's only hospital - a void in emergency medical care that [Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)] is trying to fill.
"The city was half-deserted," Frank said. "You could tell something had happened there." ...
After an hour of fitful sleep, he woke to the sound of gunfire. He stumbled out of bed and asked the guard what was going on.
"He said, 'It's nothing. Either target practice or they're celebrating New Year's.'"
In such a hospital setting, a fine line separates those who live and those who die. There were several post-operative deaths Frank is sure would have been prevented had the hospital been functioning properly ...
"That one was a tough to take," Frank said. "Because we looked like we were bringing him back from the edge of the abyss. And then a day and a half later to lose him was just sort of a major setback for everybody. We just felt deflated. You felt that Darwin was part of our triage. If you were lucky enough to get there soon enough with the right injury we could help you. But if you stepped beyond that line… You see the precariousness of existence. How lucky or unlucky you can be depends on where you are or where you happen to be at the wrong time."
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