Health care discrepancies

Health care discrepancies, already.  I knew they were coming....

A pregnant woman friday night developed severe vaginal hemorrhaging.  Unfortunately, hospitals do not keep a blood bank.  And so, as she was fighting for her life and her baby's life (who unfortunately died later that night due to malformation of her lungs...she was only 28 weeks) at 3 am her husband had to call everyone he knew to get type A+ blood, so he didnt also lose his wife.  Thankfully some people actually knew their blood type (I'm fairy certain I'm not even sure of mine) and she had a blood transfusion and is doing much better.  Really?

My students and I just returned from a home visit with Carol (a nurse) and Sissy and Betsy both physical therapists to a hardworking woman in her 50s right outside of town in a tiny house at the back of a colmado (tiny grocery store).  About four months ago she fell off her hammock onto her sacrum.  She lives with her husband who is uneducated and has mental disabilities.  She doesn't understand what was or wasn't done for her at the hospital.  But since her fall, she has not walked, at all.  She lives in a tiny house at the back of a colmado (a tiny grocery store).

We arrived thinking she would need pretty intensive medical help.  She was very depressed sitting in a room alone all day with absolutely nothing to do.  After a full neuro and musculoskeletal exam we determined she has absolutely no paralysis.  She is unable to ambulate bc her muscles are entirely atrophied from lack of mobilization.  She can weight bare slightly.  What she needs is inpatient rehab, a new bed that she can lay in without sinking to the floor, a husband who can provide her better care and hope that if she can learn to walk her life may improve.

As we concluded our day of prayer with the students today I encouraged them to look past the physical needs.  To go beyond the lack of materialistic possessions and dream about what their true hopes for each and every patient we see could be, because as Jesus said, the poor will always be amongst us.

And so we dreamed.  We dreamed of a place where all needs are met.  Where a woman in grief doesn't also have to worry that she will not get the blood transfusion she needs.  Or a woman who is unable to ambulate, but has the potential, would have hope to get better because perhaps life just wouldn't be so hard.

And then we prayed.  And as we prayed we realized that all these things couldn't possibly happen with us.  But of course the only hope for this place, for every place, is the love of Christ.  Perhaps life doesn't hand out fair cards.  But, we know that as Christians with the hope of salvation, a better future will come with all justices met and without any inequalities,

Please join me in praying for these things.  Not just in Jarabacoa, but in this world.  That we may find  peace in the discrepancies bc we are not of this world and oh equality will come.