A Drop in the Bucket?

Today I attended a lecture on an OB/GYN physician's experience in South Sudan promoting and teaching family planning. She spent 4 weeks teaching local healthcare workers, midwives, and doctors everything from basic anatomy to how to implant an IUD. Her talk highlighted many of the difficulties in global health work such as financial obstacles, language obstacles, and cultural obstacles.

One hospital (term used loosely -- a few 1 room/1story buildings on the same property) where she worked didn't have much/any materials and medication. The hospital pharmacy and THREE small bottles of antibiotics. They didn't have sutures, speculums, or a constant source of power. If a family needed/wanted a c-section, they would somehow have to find their own supplies to bring to the hospital and hope that there is a doctor there who knows how to do it (not to mention traverse horrible, unpaved road for hours upon hours to get there)

Another barrier she faced was 1) the lack of education on why family planning is important (ex -- why can't you have 11 babies starting when you are 14?) 2) the acceptance of physical abuse as a form of aggression in households. This creates problems when you are trying to provide contraception to a women without her husband knowing (ex -- concerns about husband feeling IUD strings). She would have to start from scratch explaining how baby after baby after baby (especially at a young age) increases the maternal mortality rate and decreases the country's productive output.

Although her lecture was extremely informative and enlightening, I couldn't help feeling discouraged as I left. People like this doctor and my medishare team going to Haiti do their best to make a difference, but in the end, what is really accomplished? She left South Sudan with not a single medical professional up to competency to provide contraception (such as IUD and the arm implant). However, they are about a million miles closer than before she arrived and are continuing training in her absence. What about that hospital that can't even function due to lack of supplies? It just makes me really sad about the whole global health picture in developing countries. I know there are NGOs and non profits trying to fill the gap, but it almost seems like trying to put a bandaid over a gushing wound. What would happen if no one did anything though?

I guess I can only hope that all the drops in the bucket eventually add up to make a significant impact. I also know that I am extremely privileged to live in this country with all these resources available to me when I just as easily could have been another person born in South Sudan, seemingly without hope.

A Caveat on Psychiatric Diagnosis

—"If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
however measured or far away"

. -- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)