Children's Hospital

Last Sunday I was put in touch with a gentleman, Dick, from the USA. Super nice guy. He's been living here for 4.5 yr and his specialty is speciality wheelchairs for Latin America. Long story, but the bottom line is that the person gets measured, pictures are taken of the person in need, and (via a Christian organization in Arizona) the wheelchair is fitted for the person and delivered to them.

Back to last Sunday. Last Sunday Dick took me and several others to the "children's hospital" in town. Very sad place...at least parts of it. We were well warned that we were going to see things that we weren't going to like. Flies all over a kids who can't move themselves. Kids with wet diapers...well actually a bed sheet pinned onto them...because diaper change times are at 7am, noon, and 4pm. Period. Nothing from 4pm until 7am the next day. Why? I really don't know. Dick has put almost every kid (birth to 20something) into a wheelchair if they needed it. One guy, 22yr old, has just gained tremendous independence when Dick got him an electric wheelchair controlled by a joy stick on his right foot rest. He has bad cerebral palsy and his arms fling around spastically out of control. But his feet act as hands and he's even taught himself to write with a pencil between his right big toe and the next toe. One kid is labeled as autistic, and he bangs his head against the rails on his bed that are higher than he is tall. Therefore he wears a helmet. We were told that he is confined to his metal crib with high rails (really looks like a cage to me) 24hr/day. Know why? Because he can walk. Yes, you heard me right. He can walk, and they don't have personnel to keep up with wherever he might wander to. A 50 cent lock on the main gate that leads to his section would seem a better idea to me. Dick was called into one very rural poor community to pick up a malnourished kid to bring him to the hospital to be admitted into their malnourishment ward. The kid had been in a program in his town to improve his weight and now was stable enough to be moved. He was six years old and 18 lb!!!! Good grief! He's now 8 and a chunky happy 32 lb. There's another kid that asks desperately all the time to be picked up, but we were told by the staff to not pick him up because he would cry for hours afterwards wanting more attention. Around 3pm Dick showed us a wall that was double lined with wheelchairs. He told us that the kids are put to bed for the night around 2pm. It makes life easier for the staff.
On a positive note, Dick told us example after example of how things had changed for the better...albeit very slowly. And he encouraged us to volunteer whenever we could. One person had already started to volunteer the week before. She said she wasn't exactly welcomed with warm open arms since she wanted to get kids out of their cages and change their diapers more often, and feed them the bottle that wasn't finished earlier. Go figure. I'll go volunteer when I can.