For our last week in Pokara, we wrapped up everything we had planned and promised to do. Howard did a short placement at the TB Regional Centre and found the teaching staff to be enthusiastic. They pulled every manner of chest x-ray to show him advanced stages of TB. At Manipal Hospital, following an unusual case (for him), they found numerous other CAT scans to show him where the tapeworm cysts lodge themselves in the brain—the only symptom being headache then sudden blindness or loss of consciousness. His last days were spent at the Leprosy Hospital, which is a United Mission Hospital, a well-funded charity providing free care.
We quickly organized our own little trek and covered a whopping 2230m in one and half days (this number meant nothing to me before—it means that we walked up to the tip-top of the CN Tower four times–with Howard Song as our porter). We passed mercifully content buffalos, ponies carrying supplies up and apples from Mustang down, and consistently excellent food and lodging from the Gurung folks, one of the ethnic minority of Nepal. They too shared our disbelief that the health posts were unstocked and unstaffed—the excuse that there is a war on has run a little thin with everyone. But when you are introduced to a four year old child (who looks barely two) who has infant paralysis in both legs from preventable polio—you have to believe that someone should be held responsible.
I finished teaching at the government hospital. The dynamic and energetic medical superintendent is also one of the three obstetricians. She decided that every staff person who comes in contact with a newborn should be trained in neonatal resuscitation. So emergency staff, NICU staff, and maternity staff all took turns acting out scenarios involving a newborn who is not breathing. The question of keeping the newborn warm kept coming up as there is nothing more than two 40 watt bulbs perched above a table to warm a baby.
Generally, women who have just delivered want nothing to do with their newborn baby. I’ve come to understand that everyone in the family has a job; promptly after delivery, the job of just being with the newborn is not the mother’s but the father’s or mother-in-law’s (I’ll admit that I thought the same thing after my second was born). So the idea of keeping a newborn warm against his mother is odd. But, the problem that kept coming up was that the little creatures would cool down so fast when delivered wet into the world, and usually with no proper blankets, but rather yanking the woman’s shawl from under her, or from around her head, and wrapping the baby in that. On one occasion, it was so busy, that a few babies just kept getting wrapped in their mother’s manky shawls, a piece of tape with their mother’s name identifying them stuck to the shawl, and then just plunked into a basinette, hoping they’d stay warm together. Passing by, with yet another newborn slung over my arm, I noted one baby looked blue. Not the dusky grey-blue of not breathing well, but this real blue—like my kids get when they swim in the ocean off the coast of Nova Scotia. While his mother was still being taken care of, I took the baby out to the waiting room, and started yelling his mother’s name. A woman of 100 years came up to me. I told her that this was the son of this woman—who was she? She said she was the grandmother. Hoping she had no reason to lie about such a thing, I asked her to follow me to the roof. She climbed through a window that led to the adjoining roof from the waiting room. Pease sit, I told her. This baby cold is. This baby blue is. Blue cold good no is, I shook my head. Pink warm good is. Understand? She wobbled her head, cracked open her shirt, took the baby, and placed his naked body against hers. She then took her shawl and wrapped it around her, settling into the sun to do her job. I came back 15 minute later, and he was starting to pink up. And not that grandmothers will ever be replaced, but from the carpet raffle funds, the delivery room now has 60 infant receiving blankets and a very large heating pad to warm the blankets. So the new baby can be dried off with a pre-warmed blanket, before being wrapped in his mother’s shawl or grandmother’s arms.
We came back to Kathmandu to see Howard off on his flight back to Canada. Then, a few hours later, in one of those surreal moments that only Nepal can afford—we sat in a friend’s living room watching Nicole Kidman become a Stepford wife...then we heard a very distinctive bomb blast, gunfire, then silence. This was followed by nearby shops closing their metal grate doors...then more silence. We continued to watch the movie and then came a phone call from one of the medical directors, letting us know that the municipal office across from the Stupa Community Hospital was bombed, but the hospital was fine. The next morning, you’d swear you dreamed it. Nothing had changed. There is now a curfew but no one ever went out past 8pm anyways. The King has called an election for February 8th, and none of the major political parties are planning to attend. The former Minister of Information and now head of one of the larger political parties, is asking citizens to boycott the election. The current appointed Minister of Information is quoted as saying that human loss is normal in an election (and he’s trying to get people out to vote?).
So we’re planning to head out of town, to the village of Thuman, which has a fine view of Langtang mountain range—for a health camp.
I finished teaching at the government hospital. The dynamic and energetic medical superintendent is also one of the three obstetricians. She decided that every staff person who comes in contact with a newborn should be trained in neonatal resuscitation. So emergency staff, NICU staff, and maternity staff all took turns acting out scenarios involving a newborn who is not breathing. The question of keeping the newborn warm kept coming up as there is nothing more than two 40 watt bulbs perched above a table to warm a baby.
Generally, women who have just delivered want nothing to do with their newborn baby. I’ve come to understand that everyone in the family has a job; promptly after delivery, the job of just being with the newborn is not the mother’s but the father’s or mother-in-law’s (I’ll admit that I thought the same thing after my second was born). So the idea of keeping a newborn warm against his mother is odd. But, the problem that kept coming up was that the little creatures would cool down so fast when delivered wet into the world, and usually with no proper blankets, but rather yanking the woman’s shawl from under her, or from around her head, and wrapping the baby in that. On one occasion, it was so busy, that a few babies just kept getting wrapped in their mother’s manky shawls, a piece of tape with their mother’s name identifying them stuck to the shawl, and then just plunked into a basinette, hoping they’d stay warm together. Passing by, with yet another newborn slung over my arm, I noted one baby looked blue. Not the dusky grey-blue of not breathing well, but this real blue—like my kids get when they swim in the ocean off the coast of Nova Scotia. While his mother was still being taken care of, I took the baby out to the waiting room, and started yelling his mother’s name. A woman of 100 years came up to me. I told her that this was the son of this woman—who was she? She said she was the grandmother. Hoping she had no reason to lie about such a thing, I asked her to follow me to the roof. She climbed through a window that led to the adjoining roof from the waiting room. Pease sit, I told her. This baby cold is. This baby blue is. Blue cold good no is, I shook my head. Pink warm good is. Understand? She wobbled her head, cracked open her shirt, took the baby, and placed his naked body against hers. She then took her shawl and wrapped it around her, settling into the sun to do her job. I came back 15 minute later, and he was starting to pink up. And not that grandmothers will ever be replaced, but from the carpet raffle funds, the delivery room now has 60 infant receiving blankets and a very large heating pad to warm the blankets. So the new baby can be dried off with a pre-warmed blanket, before being wrapped in his mother’s shawl or grandmother’s arms.
We came back to Kathmandu to see Howard off on his flight back to Canada. Then, a few hours later, in one of those surreal moments that only Nepal can afford—we sat in a friend’s living room watching Nicole Kidman become a Stepford wife...then we heard a very distinctive bomb blast, gunfire, then silence. This was followed by nearby shops closing their metal grate doors...then more silence. We continued to watch the movie and then came a phone call from one of the medical directors, letting us know that the municipal office across from the Stupa Community Hospital was bombed, but the hospital was fine. The next morning, you’d swear you dreamed it. Nothing had changed. There is now a curfew but no one ever went out past 8pm anyways. The King has called an election for February 8th, and none of the major political parties are planning to attend. The former Minister of Information and now head of one of the larger political parties, is asking citizens to boycott the election. The current appointed Minister of Information is quoted as saying that human loss is normal in an election (and he’s trying to get people out to vote?).
So we’re planning to head out of town, to the village of Thuman, which has a fine view of Langtang mountain range—for a health camp.
