After two missions to Calcutta, the Styrian pulmonologist Dr. Pichler is now in Bangladesh for the first time, namely in the country’s second largest city, Chittagong. Here you can read her personal impressions:
“People, people, people… chaos on the roads. At first glance, you can’t tell if there is left-hand traffic – not even at second or third glance. The accommodation is spartan, my two colleagues share a room (the doctor’s apartment is currently being converted and extended). I’m lucky to get a room on my own. I quickly have to get used to the daily routine, as many people are waiting in the outpatient clinic of the MCPP (Medical Center for the Poorest of the Poor). The colleague who has been here for two weeks introduces me.
I hope to be able to recall some of the medical knowledge from my two Calcutta missions from my deeply buried memories. At first glance, however, some things seem different: I see a lot more emaciated young mothers with a child on their hips that is too small for their age, the sibling also still small, but already walking, tired, limp, with a fever in the evening, back pain….who’s surprised?
One Saturday, we accompany the social worker to a slum district. She tracks down people who need help and can’t afford to see a doctor. The “housing units” (if you can even call them that) are expensive, small, dark and inhabited by families with many children. There is one toilet for women and one for men for every 10 housing units. If you can, you have to pay for a 20 liter canister of clean drinking water per family per day. Electricity is available but expensive and often fails. You can hardly count the many children. Now, at the latest, we three colleagues understand why the women we see in the ambulances are tired, emaciated and sick. Rays of sunlight do not find their way into this jungle of tin huts.
I feel bad when I see the patience with which the social worker writes the invitation cards for the outpatient clinic and how little time I have the next day to have my medical history translated from Bengali into English, to be examined and treated…
There are plenty of bad fates: e.g. a 4-year-old deaf(mute) boy with a missing left ear, the right one deformed and sitting low on his cheek. A 31-year-old mother with 3 children, now pregnant with twins. A 26-year-old woman in a wheelchair, beaten to death with a red-hot iron bar by her husband 3 weeks ago, now paraplegic with deep burns on her hip and sacrum. She has 5 children, the youngest is 7 months old. Will this mother survive? One should not give up hope!
Another sad story: Mother of 4 girls – heavily pregnant again – has not felt any baby movements for 2 days. I send her to hospital. 2 days later she comes back with a newborn baby in her arms (weighing 1800 grams). Doesn’t want to keep the baby – it’s the 5th girl. She probably hoped until the last second that she would have a boy.
The list of stories goes on and on. The bright spot in all this misery? Three patients smiling at me in one day! What would happen to all these patients if German Doctors didn’t tirelessly try to help them? This is probably also what motivates me to keep putting my energy at their disposal.”
