Something to ponder on
I was going through an article at AAMI regarding a flying eye hospital. Went into their website and came upon something that might highlight a tale I am about to tell. The article is about an Ethiopian woman who undergoes a cataract surgery aboard the flying eye hospital. The article quoted:
"The available eye care personnel in Ethiopia are: 76 ophthalmologists, four cataract surgeons, 93 ophthalmic nurses and ophthalmic medical assistants and 258 eye care workers."
Four cataract surgeons?????????? This is not just a situation in Ethiopia alone. It is likely many other African countries are facing a similar sort of difficulty.
I chose Ethiopia because it is the only African country I have lived in and I can somehow relate to common things there, like in a rural environment. This particular article is a prelude to what I am going to write here - another reality bite.
The university at Jimma employs many part-time students who work in the university at different departments in the mornings and attend evening college. We met a boy who was doing some course to become an electrician, and so he was working under the electrical maintenance department to gain more experience. We once had him to do some repair at home - to fix a socket. He had difficulty in screwing the socket to the wall; he was peering so close to the wall to look at the spot where he had to screw in the nail. Mom asked him if he had a bad sight. He said his sight was failing, that he did not have enough money to get a check-up done and get some spectacles, that he would continue to work because he needed the money for his daily bread, that he would only stop when he is completely blind, and when the time comes and he turns blind, he would go back to the place of his family, and live there as a blind person, doing nothing. Mom was puzzled. The boy was intelligent, he was only about 18-19 years old. The way his sight was suggested he may go completely blind in two to three years. And then what? His life had no hope. He was stranded. He couldn't do anything and neither could his family, because they were living in more worse conditions than he was. That is how they live their life - they give it up easily to fate and await what is to come upon them. When it does, they surrender to it and live in starvation and misery till their death. The boy was eager to study, didn't have the means to do so. His only concern had become his daily bread, his injera. If ever he had a better chance of living and some money in his pocket, I bet he would have become a somebody in this world, not just rotting away to dust. Is this life?
"The available eye care personnel in Ethiopia are: 76 ophthalmologists, four cataract surgeons, 93 ophthalmic nurses and ophthalmic medical assistants and 258 eye care workers."
Four cataract surgeons?????????? This is not just a situation in Ethiopia alone. It is likely many other African countries are facing a similar sort of difficulty.
I chose Ethiopia because it is the only African country I have lived in and I can somehow relate to common things there, like in a rural environment. This particular article is a prelude to what I am going to write here - another reality bite.
The university at Jimma employs many part-time students who work in the university at different departments in the mornings and attend evening college. We met a boy who was doing some course to become an electrician, and so he was working under the electrical maintenance department to gain more experience. We once had him to do some repair at home - to fix a socket. He had difficulty in screwing the socket to the wall; he was peering so close to the wall to look at the spot where he had to screw in the nail. Mom asked him if he had a bad sight. He said his sight was failing, that he did not have enough money to get a check-up done and get some spectacles, that he would continue to work because he needed the money for his daily bread, that he would only stop when he is completely blind, and when the time comes and he turns blind, he would go back to the place of his family, and live there as a blind person, doing nothing. Mom was puzzled. The boy was intelligent, he was only about 18-19 years old. The way his sight was suggested he may go completely blind in two to three years. And then what? His life had no hope. He was stranded. He couldn't do anything and neither could his family, because they were living in more worse conditions than he was. That is how they live their life - they give it up easily to fate and await what is to come upon them. When it does, they surrender to it and live in starvation and misery till their death. The boy was eager to study, didn't have the means to do so. His only concern had become his daily bread, his injera. If ever he had a better chance of living and some money in his pocket, I bet he would have become a somebody in this world, not just rotting away to dust. Is this life?
posted by Grace at 10:53 AM
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