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What Happens to Patients
· You are experiencing chest pain and are having difficulty breathing.
· You have been throwing up for more than a day.
· You are too weak to travel or lift your head.
· You are in terrible pain and screaming for help! It is midnight and the only person with you is your 15 years old son
· Imagine that you are gravely ill.
· With you are your son and your spotty white and black cat that won't leave you. Your are dying but your cat won't leave your side
· You are desperately crying for help. It is dark and the nearest hut is about a km away
· Your son, a Healthcare Professional who works for one of the World's best hospitals (Harvard Teaching School Hospital) is far away in the United States. There is no way to reach him due to lack of any form of communication system
· Roads are un-passable. It is so difficult for a 15 year old to handle. He knows his mother is dying but there is so little he can do. He didn't give up...
Now imagine that you are stuck in a remote village with bush paths accessible only by foot before getting to where you can hitch a ride on a motorcycle. To get to a motorcycle, you have to piggy ride on the back of your son. And then you are supported on the back of the motorcycle by a third person, your son from behind. You all three follow a five km muddy path for about two to three hours to the hospital. You are in terrible pain and crying. The nurse tells you to "shut the hell up". You wait for what seems like hours because there are only two young doctors available for a hospital handling many critically ill patients. Your breathing has become more laborious. The doctor finally arrives but is concerned about dehydration and a heart attack. The only biochemistry machine is broken. The hospital’s only electrocardiogram dating back to 1964 broke two years ago. The hospital lacks glucose to replenish lost fluids. All he could do is give you pain killer that he hopes would allow you to sleep. He continues to increase the doze until you fall asleep at 6:00 A.M. Hours later, the patient gains consciousness with the same pain. This time she complains of dizziness. Every time she complains of pain and dizziness, the nurse takes her blood pressure. Nobody knows the cause of dizziness or illness. And the patient dies a hard death. (Complete story in Boston Globe and aired on New England Cable News (NECN)).
Did Basel Mission Missionaries leave the hospital because of increasing challenges? Did they properly implement a change management strategy before leaving? Or did Presbyterian Church of Cameroon abandon the hospital, providing people of Meta region with FALSE HOPE? Most villagers prefer to die at home or seek alternative medicine (from Traditional Healers taking advantage of desperate situations) for diseases like HIV/AID) than go through the agony of pain and suffering. That is what is happening in Meta today. And it is the change we must bring to that region. PATH SYSTEM consists of the foot soldiers and Microhealth Global Consulting, a Public Charity Organization is determined to save and sustain the lives of Meta People in several ways, using some of the best practices employed worldwide where we have challenges of this magnitude.
Now imagine that person is your mother who worked nights and days raising six children by herself, including you because your father died when you were little. Imagine she is the one who never went to school and feels that her children deserve what she was not fortunate to have. Imagine her struggling to help the son study in the United States and hoping that one day he would come to rescue her and the rest of the family. Then she died due to dehydration while the son works at one of the Worlds hospitals in the United States. He never had the time to intervene.
Can you imagine thousands of patients especially children dying in that facility the same way your mother died? That is what happens in many villages in Meta. Think of the faces of patients, families and parents of children looking outside through the window and hoping, waiting as if someone had promised them that help was on the way. It is real and happening at Presbyterian General Hospital Acha-Tugi located in Cameroon.
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