An Empty Desk

Today we received news that one of the nursing students passed away.

Last week, a girl in the front row raised her hand during a lecture I was giving on anemia. She had a question about a friend who had a lab test done. When she told me the result, I almost didn't believe her. Her red blood cell count was staggeringly low. The student wanted to know what she could do for her friend, what medicine she could give, because now her friend couldn't stand up, wasn't thinking right, and had stopped eating.

Needless to say, the lab level she announced to me would leave most of us unconscious. I told her that her friend needed to go to the hospital. She needed a transfusion. She needed help now. My student lowered her eyes and admitted that the friend's family had taken her to a hospital earlier when she was still walking and talking, but she was sent home. And she didn't have enough money to go back.

After class, the girl and the president of the class stood up and announced that the "friend" was one of their classmates. They then collected a little bit of money from everyone in the class so that they could help send their classmate to the hospital.

This morning, the nursing director informed me that the student had in fact made it to the hospital, but died there this morning. She didn't have any more information beyond that. She showed me her picture. I knew her face. She was a student that came to class each day, asked good questions, seemed interested and stayed involved in class discussions. And she wouldn't be coming back.

I'm left stunned.

I'm stunned because it wasn't that long ago that she was sitting in class. What had happened? Had she felt bad for a long time and just kept getting up each day doing what she needed to do? Had things gone bad all of a sudden? So many people here "tuff it out" through so much pain, so much sickness. I am constantly fooled by patients who come in to my clinic, sit down conversing, looking well, sounding well and end up testing positive for illnesses that would have landed me in bed immobilized. In fact just today a young man sauntered up to me and handed me a lab test I had ordered 3 weeks ago. I teased him for being late, thinking the tests were likely negative if he was handing it over grinning sheepishly. But no, he was positive for both malaria and typhoid, and yet he stood their smiling at me, joking about how long it had taken him. "How do you feel?" I asked shocked. "Not so good," he responded with a toothy smile. Instead of downplaying list of symptoms patients give me, I am starting to learn to read into them, looking deeper. Because a young woman sitting in class one day might not be with us the next.

Patrick and I have had our moments of questioning CONASPEH's methods. They do things in ways Americans don't always understand. They start one project after another, well before earlier programs have been fine-tuned and polished leaving a menagerie of projects underway that all need attention, all need money, all need personnel and materials. Instead of narrowing their focus, CONASPEH ever seems to be broadening their outreach, extending services and projects to meet the ever prevalent needs in their community: primary and secondary education, health education, theological education, micro loans, scholarships, house and church constructions, orphanages, feeding programs, clinics, labs, pharmacies, and child-sponsorship.

But today I'm reminded why.

They are ever immersed in need. They see their students come in hungry, they know families can't afford to pay simple tuition, they watch promising youth fall into ruts due to lack of job or opportunity to continue education. They hear the stories of families' homes destroyed by floods, of their neighbors battle with starvation and disease, and of students lost to untimely death.

It is easy for me to get happily caught up in all the projects CONASPEH has underway for health education and outreach. Lately I've been immersed in lesson preparation, subject discussion and grade-totaling in class. Clinics have been busy, and weeks have been a bustle of running here and there attending to one thing or another. At the end of the day, I go home and settle in comfortably with my family, insulated even in Haiti to most of the realities the people all around me face.

So today offered a very tragic reminder for me of the urgency of the situation here. Tonight I slow down and send up a prayer.... a prayer that one day outreach be sufficient for the need, that systems will rise up and support the people they serve. I pray that one day a student won't have to sit in class fighting to stay focused for the dizziness in her head, but instead take leave and go to the health center where she can get the diagnostics and treatment she needs affordably, and later return to class better, stronger, and ready to take her life forward.

Some day. Because it isn't so today.