It is another day at the clinic. The entire town is without electric as usual, so now our small generator is running full blast. The clinic is full, and a small child needs to be transported by car to a children’s hospital. His name is Jose and we are worried to death that he will not make it.
He has a raging fever of 40c/104 F and he is not breathing very well. We have two worn out oxygen generators and the minute we take the mask off the child his blood oxygen levels drop dangerously low.
Doctor Miguel, has an idea. Using one of the old Oxygen generators and a 12-volt battery converter rigged to the car’s engine. We rig it and it works! Now we have a portable oxygen system to keep the baby alive for transport to the hospital many miles away.
That is the part I am proud of. I am proud of our incredible young doctor as he treats up to 60 patients per day, and I and proud to serve the poorest of the poor here in our small village in Honduras, but what causes me to cry inside, while smiling on the outside, is the cruel question of “why is it that a simple chance of being born at a specific longitude and latitude determines who will live and who will die.
As I turn my eyes to the North I think about the fact that from where I am standing at this moment I am only 1,500 miles from my lovely home town of Gastonia NC. I wonder if all the Paramedics at Gaston Emergency Medical Services where I used to work, are having a day like this.
A child is crying loudly in the clinic, and like a call to reveille, I snap out of my day dream, and start looking through my pockets for enough money to pay for the gas for little Jose and his mother to get to the hospital. The cost is fifty-two dollars, and I only have twenty-two. Now what do I do? I think we need a miracle.
