Cell 2 Soul: The Humane Health Care Blog

Marginal Notes: Aftershocks

I listened to the initial reports of the devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti while driving home from work Tuesday evening. Later, I tried to read the lead articles at the New York Times website. I had a great deal of trouble making it through the first several paragraphs. Even at the outset the carnage was too much to comprehend—50,000 to 70,000 feared dead in the worst earthquake to hit the country in 200 years.

 

Today I scanned photographs of bulldozers dropping dead bodies into dump trucks; piles of corpses lying in the streets; faces holding empty buckets up to be filled with fresh water; a bag of IV fluid hung from the branches of a tree infusing into the arm of a woman reclining on a mattress on the grass; faces of pain, faces of grief.  >>more

 

Brian T. Maurer has practiced pediatrics as a Physician Assistant for thirty years.  His "Marginal Notes" column appears periodically in the Cell2Soul Blog. The title "Marginal Notes" is taken from a quote by Henry David Thoreau: "I love a broad margin to my life." 

Focus on Zimbabwe

"With their nation in a prolonged sequence of crises, more unaccompanied children and women than ever are joining the rush of desperate Zimbabweans  [trying] to escape a broken country where half the people are going hungry, most schools and hospitals are closed or dysfunctional and a cholera epidemic has taken a toll in the thousands. Yet they are arriving in a place where they are unwelcome and are resented as rivals for jobs. Last year, Zimbabweans were part of the quarry in a spate of mob attacks against foreigners."

As we focus on Caroline Kennedy's senate seat defection in NY and the the latest news about Branjolie, we need to remember that there are dark places beyond our purview where tragedy is continuing to unfold.

See the recent NY Times article: "Desperate Children Flee Zim, for Lives Just a Desolate." 

C2S's Zim correspondent, Kuda Mutyambizi, recently sent us this posting: 

"Zimbabwe Beat:  Cholera Outbreak. Despite its current tribulations, Zimbabwe’s greatest treasure remains its people.  The people on the ground, both local and those who have been inspired from a distance to come and join in the fight for life and dignity, refuse to give up..."  She urges us to "be a voice against injustice, in all its forms, at home and abroad. We may be many miles away from Zimbabwe, and other places where there is considerable suffering, but we are made complicit by our silence and humane by our action."  See Kuda's full letter at: Download Kuda Letter

In her letter, Kuda has suggestions on how one can help Zimbabwe and its people.

An American Story

At his victory speech, Barak Obama praised 106 year-old Ann Nixon Cooper who was born just a generation past slavery in 1902; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin."

For more on Mrs. Cooper see: Profile