Medical Monday #6: Orphanage

My favorite british doctor here (not just because between patients we talk about the laws of thermodynamics, nerds unite) Chris Milner's wife Ruth works at an orphanage. He occasionally will see the children there as patients - so I asked to visit as well.

Mozambique is currently trending away from orphanages, in fact, they're in the process of closing them down. It has become clear to the government and everyone else that children do best in families or smaller settings. Far too many deaths occur in the orphanages here from failure to thrive resulting from neglect. Though Ruth did a lot at this orphanage when I visited, the sheer number of children desiring attention and care outnumbered the several staff members. There was a study done long ago in Britain apparently where children were given nothing but food and shelter; and it had to be stopped because children started dying.

I was, and am, still quite overwhelmed with the experience. Even as we entered the hallway, I was surrounded by children that grabbed at every available finger, pantleg, and they all wanted attention. "Tia, tia, tia" (aunt, aunt, aunt) there was a voice on every side. They were nearly all underdeveloped for their age (even with adequate nutrition), and some had other physical abnormalities. A boy about 5 with hearing problems followed me around all morning and would just come and sit next to me grabbing my hand and just smile. Other children already had apathetic behaviors and were detached from playing.

It's hard to describe how I felt around such small children. It made me angry to think of parents who had left them, though some had lost both parents to AIDS. It made me angry to think of the rest of society abandoning them. It made me just terribly sad to think of all the unmet need when all that they asked was for affection.