Of Western Science and Local Superstition
Mark here: As westerners look at the HIV/AIDS epidemic in this country we can sit back and ponder the reasons why it happens, but never truly understand them until walking in the footsteps of a local clinic doctor or nurse. This is a country riddled by a disease that seems to grow daily and strike down youth and adult alike.
.
Clinics in the rural areas are overwhelmed with nearly a hundred visitors a day with maladies ranging from tuberculosis to HIV issues. Government provided ARVs are free to anyone who has tested positive, but getting the patients to look beyond the local Sanghomas is a battle that is only just being fought. With the local villages filled with illiterate populations a wariness of the western sciences has taken hold and the HIV medications are being forsaken for the local healers and their cornucopia of herbs and such.
.
For Dr. Lee and Zuko of a village clinic it is a slow climb to the pinnacle of understanding between the past’s traditions and the reality that is HIV/AIDS. Meetings with the local healers have taken place and the clinics are attempting to bridge the cultural gap between past and present so that the disease does not steal away another generation.
.
Imagine halls filled with patients, a cacophony of coughs and crying children and the overworked and underpaid nurses and doctors doing whatever is possible to bring comfort to this mass of humanity. The next time a prescription is filled at the local Walgreens, remember Dr. Lee’s clinic and their broom closet of medicines that are dispensed through a slot in the wall by a volunteer with little or no training. It is all well and good, according to Dr. Lee, for the west to provide medications and money, but it is a grassroots approach that is needed to bridge the gap between the village tradition and the scientific growth in the field of HIV/AIDS medication. “Until that happens,” says Dr. Lee, “this is a battle that we cannot win.” For a country on the verge of losing a generation of its children this is one time where there is no room for failure. It is not a change that will happen overnight, but something that must be given time and approached with patience to do the right way. “It is not a manner if we can succeed”, says Zuko, a health supervisor at the clinic, “but that we must or we will lose our children.”
Mark here: As westerners look at the HIV/AIDS epidemic in this country we can sit back and ponder the reasons why it happens, but never truly understand them until walking in the footsteps of a local clinic doctor or nurse. This is a country riddled by a disease that seems to grow daily and strike down youth and adult alike.
.
Clinics in the rural areas are overwhelmed with nearly a hundred visitors a day with maladies ranging from tuberculosis to HIV issues. Government provided ARVs are free to anyone who has tested positive, but getting the patients to look beyond the local Sanghomas is a battle that is only just being fought. With the local villages filled with illiterate populations a wariness of the western sciences has taken hold and the HIV medications are being forsaken for the local healers and their cornucopia of herbs and such.
.
For Dr. Lee and Zuko of a village clinic it is a slow climb to the pinnacle of understanding between the past’s traditions and the reality that is HIV/AIDS. Meetings with the local healers have taken place and the clinics are attempting to bridge the cultural gap between past and present so that the disease does not steal away another generation.
.
Imagine halls filled with patients, a cacophony of coughs and crying children and the overworked and underpaid nurses and doctors doing whatever is possible to bring comfort to this mass of humanity. The next time a prescription is filled at the local Walgreens, remember Dr. Lee’s clinic and their broom closet of medicines that are dispensed through a slot in the wall by a volunteer with little or no training. It is all well and good, according to Dr. Lee, for the west to provide medications and money, but it is a grassroots approach that is needed to bridge the gap between the village tradition and the scientific growth in the field of HIV/AIDS medication. “Until that happens,” says Dr. Lee, “this is a battle that we cannot win.” For a country on the verge of losing a generation of its children this is one time where there is no room for failure. It is not a change that will happen overnight, but something that must be given time and approached with patience to do the right way. “It is not a manner if we can succeed”, says Zuko, a health supervisor at the clinic, “but that we must or we will lose our children.”
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