No mother

This week was long and tiring.  I was in the HDU (high dependency unit) all week. Picture an ICU but then take out all the monitors and equipment and that is our HDU.  So often we know that there will not be much we can do for a patient.  Even with that expectation, it is still really hard to see a child die.  Even when you know it is coming.  One of the Malawian pediatricians said it best I think when she was referring to TB and saying, "We get used to it. We think it is normal for children to die. It is not normal. These are treatable diseases. We cannot accept that children are dying."

It made me think and this was the best I could do to put it into words. A somewhat rambling poem I think.  

No mother should ever have to see her child die
No mother should ever have to wonder if this fever will be the last
If she has enough money to get to the hospital
If she will make it in time walking with a baby on her back
No mother should question whether she should even go
Because she has heard that the hospital is where children go to die
No mother should have to see her child getting CPR
Then wrap its body in a colorful cloth
Wailing as they are wheeled outside surrounded by women who feel her pain 
Because they too have lost sons, daughters, nieces, neighbors
No mother should have to call her family and speak through sobs over a bad connection
Then carry what was once her baby on her back
Now a husk where there used to be soul
As she waits for a mini bus back to a village
That will mourn its own
No mother should call a name into the silence
Where there once were shrieks of laughter
First words
And tiny steps into outstretched arms
No mother should have to place flowers 
Over newly turned earth
And say goodbye
Because no mother's child
Should die

It is difficult because I think we are all aware of the diseases that kill children in these environments. Malaria, TB, HIV, diarrhea, pneumonia, etc. etc.  And we pour money into this.  And it helps. But it is still happening.  So I am trying not to become complacent while I am here. Trying not to get to where I accept this.  And trying to figure out where we can make changes. Because the reality is providing care in the hospital is the easy part. It is the awareness in the community, the getting to the hospital, the using a bed net, the knowing when a child is too sick to stay home, when they are too sick to use traditional medicine... all of those things that make a huge difference.  And that I don't know how to fix.  Despite this being depressing, I am hopeful.  There are still things we can do, information we can learn, problems we can fix. I just am impatient, but I am trying.