Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series -

Yes, Dr Stachel's skills were useless without electricity, but Nigerian doctors were unfazed.  Doing an episode of "On Point" which I present for NTA International,  on overseas medical treatment, one of my guests mentioned (actually, boasted of) this capacity for working under extreme conditions.  What one would otherwise expect to find in a war zone.  I guess that is why we say that "condition, na him make crayfish bend".  I guess that sometimes you have to be bent to survive.

Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

On 1 Mar 2013, at 14:42, Kwabena Akurang-Parry <kaparry@hotmail.com> wrote:

The story below is not only about Nigeria. In Ghana thousands of women die every year during childbirth due to the lack of facilities and supplies. Recently, doctors in one major regional hospital threatened to close it down because of the unavailability of water and electricity, the latter is called dumso dumso (you switch on  your light and government people switch it off). Meanwhile the clueless political elites, better still, pen-armed robbers, are putting up palaces and buying 100-dollar cars! These political predators steal from the state, are paradoxically worshipped by the masses, and state burials are one of their entitlements. One day, the voiceless and benighted masses of Ghana, Nigeria, etc. will rise up against the local African imperialists who have colonised their own people. Untill then the educated predators, worse than the erstwhileEuropean imperialists,  will continue to kill the dream and reality of indepence. 
 
Kwabena.
 
Berkeley, California (CNN) -- On a research trip in Nigeria, Dr. Laura Stachel watched as physicians performed an emergency cesarean section.

 

What happened next stunned her.

"The lights went out," Stachel recalled, "and I said, 'How are they going to finish?' "

She was even more surprised by the nonchalant response.

"You didn't even see people reacting because it was something they were so used to," she said.

Fortunately, Stachel had a flashlight with her, and the doctors were able to use it to complete the surgery. But during that two-week trip in 2008, she witnessed countless other times when the lives of mothers and babies were at risk simply because of a lack of reliable electricity. Pregnant women would arrive at the hospital with severe complications, but without adequate light to treat them, procedures had to be compromised or delayed until daylight. Some women were even turned away.

"I realized that my skills as an obstetrician-gynecologist were utterly useless (without) something as basic as light and electricity," Stachel said.

 

(PLEASE, READ ON THE RESY): http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/28/health/cnnheroes-stachel-solar-power/index.html

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