The Hex 2

Anyone who follows me on facebook may remember a status I had a while back.  In it I mentioned how we had spent $50 US to take two severely malnourished children to a hospital at Cazale (Cajale, I don’t know the spelling).  The organization there, Real Hope 4 Haiti, was started by a pair of American sisters back in 1998.  They had been traveling to Haiti with their mother, a nurse, since before they graduated high school.  When the time came, they each knew they wanted to move to Haiti permanently and have slowly built one of the nicest medical services I’ve seen in my time here.  The place is staffed almost entirely by Haitians.  They can provide treatment for HIV and tuberculosis.  And they have an inpatient unit that specializes in children with severe malnutrition.  I can’t even begin to send enough praise to this group.  But back to our story.

One child suffered so badly from protein malnourishment that her hands, feet and face were puffy, a sign of hypoalbuminemia.  She was two years old and could not support the weight of her own head.  She lay in her mother’s arms like a floppy rag doll.  I didn’t think there was any way we could help this child.

The other not only had malnutrition, but she also suffered from a skin disorder that caused the top layers of her skin to blister off.  I racked my brain for all the skin diseases that I have learned and forgotten umpteen times.  Is it epidermolysis bullosa, pellagra, pemphigous bulgaris, etc?  I don’t know.  But at the end of the day it honestly wouldn’t matter that much in Haiti. We weren’t going to do any genetic or protein testing.  It appeared to be a form that didn’t involve the mucous membranes and didn’t result in scarring after the blisters healed - all of which point to it being relatively tolerable when compared to the other similar skin disorders.

We took them each, by private tap tap, to the aforementioned hospital.  The staff was confident that the inpatient nutrition program would do wonders for them.

And they were right.  Every update we received told us that the babies were progressing very well.  They were soaking up all the calories they could.  The skin condition was improving with routine dressing care.  And then I got another email:

    The child that came with the skin condition.  The mom came and took her back home.  She first said we were not taking care of her well.  Then said that she wanted to take her to church so they could fast and pray for her.  I spent a long time with her explaining that this skin condition is not going to go away.  So she said it was not a malade dokte.  So that means she will not seek medical treatment but will do herb treatment or go to the voodoo peeps.

I wish I could say that this was uncommon, but that would be a lie.  Sometimes it’s because a family member told them that they should seek the traditional practices and other times it’s because they aren’t seeing the results they expect with modern medicine.  To be fair, people in the United States take similar approaches.  There are “traditional healers” all over the place.  They hide behind the guise of chiropractors and various other monikers.  The herbal supplement industry has a multi-billion dollar market.  At the end of the day, any time you approach somebody for “health-improving” treatments or medicines that haven’t been discussed in peer reviewed journals you’re participating in a form of “voodoo.”  Not in the literal sense obviously.  I’m assuming most people who read this don’t pay a religious figure to become possessed by some demon or saint and provide magical healing powers.  But a placebo is a placebo.

I was deflated to hear that this mother had abandoned modern medical management for her little girl.  I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to have to make that decision.  All she sees is this skin disease that the little girl has had her whole life.  And whatever we’re doing looks unconventional compared to what she’s used to seeing traditional practitioners use.  Our bandages are white and come in plastic.  Very unnatural.  At home the people use boiled leaves, grass, and mud.  Much more natural.  That’s what has made sense her whole life.  And that’s probably what her friends and family were telling her to adopt.  It’s unfortunate.  All we can do is hope that if the baby gets sick again that she’ll give us another chance.