Project Phongsali 2011: Illness hits children especially hard. With no medicine villagers rely on spirit ceremony alone.

March 4, 2011
By


Week Five

Day Twenty-Nine:

Nobody seems to have a handle on what illness has claimed the lives of four children in Kiew Ka Cham village, and sickened many others.  (Symptoms suggest one of three likely viruses: whooping cough, diphtheria, and influenza).  Thus far, the deceased have all been young children between six weeks and twenty-four months of age.

This morning I reported the deaths to the district hospital in Muang May; the reaction there was a mixture of both surprise and resignation.  The public health officers working out of the hospital had yet to receive any notification from the nurse who staffs a small clinic in the village; they spoke fatalistically about the ongoing health problems and the inevitability of childhood deaths.

At mid-day today, when I talked with the nurse at the village clinic, he admitted that he had yet to report the deaths to his superiors.  He couldn’t articulate a reason for that omission but I can conjure up several possibilities.

The deaths might result in loss of face for him and he’s embarrassed to report them to his superiors.  Or, he might be worried that someone will investigate and learn that he has failed to perform some assigned task, such as immunizing children.   Or, four is simply not a sufficient number of deaths to raise his level of concern.  Or, he can’t see a reason to alert and alarm officials at the hospital if they lack resources to do anything about the problem.

Of course, there is also the possibility that the nurse has done nothing because he’s a complete slacker.  Evidence of that possibility: he has no figures for how many children live in the village, how many have recently been ill, how many are behind on their vaccinations or even, the family names of the recently deceased.

Finding no action occurring locally, I contacted my friend Leila Srour, an American physician living in northern Laos who works with a Minnesota-based NGO called Health Frontiers.   Leila shared insight into how medical care is delivered in the remote provinces and advised me how to gently nudge local officials into action.

NOTE:

As predicted, the village has now instituted a quarantine, not to contain the virus but to sequestrate the village from spirits that people believe are the cause of the illness.  The naiban told me that he was confident that by using local medicine and religious rites, the village could halt the epidemic.

When I inquired about the possibility that children in the village might not have been properly vaccinated, the naiban complained that the village clinic never seems to have sufficient medicines.  He assured me that if and when vaccines are made available he will encourage all parents to have their children immunized. In the mean time, he’s putting his trust in the spirit ceremony.

One Response to “ Project Phongsali 2011: Illness hits children especially hard. With no medicine villagers rely on spirit ceremony alone. ”

  1. Rick Gray on April 2, 2011 at 8:19 am

    Jim

    Fascinating blog! It’s the 1st thing I check in the morning for your updates. I’m interested in your calender. How long is this current trip and when will you return to the states? I have a trip planed to Laos in November and wondering about volunteer opportunity’s on this next trip. Also, if you are coming to the Ann Arbor Art Fair again this year? If so please let me know if I can be of help in anyway. I live 10 blocks from downtown. Any news about Pome from Tintook?

    Keep up the good work and stay safe.

    Rick

Leave a Reply