Alternative Medicine in Haiti--October 16, 2006
I examined this young lady in clinic today. She is 23 years old and lives just a few miles from the clinic but it takes her at least 30 minutes to get down the dirt road which has huge holes, mud, and water.
She was very weak and short of breath when she arrived and we had had to pull her into the exam room. Her blood pressure was 104/0 and she appeared very pale.
Her blood was drawn at our lab next door which revealed a hemoglobin of 3. She should have a hemoglobin of 14. This young lady has very little blood circulating to carry oxygen to her organs. She was suffocating.
There are many causes of anemia in Haiti with iron deficiency at the top of the list. I don’t know if she has sickle cell anemia. She could have both.
She has no money to go to a public hospital and has no family member to take care of her in the hospital. So hospitalization in Haiti is not an option. She desperately needs a blood transfusion and we need to find the reason for her severe anemia.
Today I gave her a shot of iron and some iron supplements to take orally. We also gave her a high-protein drink and some corn curls as she sat in a chair with a smile on her face devouring them.
I told her to come back to the clinic tomorrow for more injectable iron which is sometimes dangerous because of allergic reactions. But that is the best alternative for her now to quickly restore her iron. Haiti has given her no more “alternatives” than this.
She smiled and said she would come back—but suddenly I remembered that tomorrow is a national holiday. I think she had forgotten, too. Hopefully, she will return in a couple of days.
I practice “alternative medicine” in Haiti which is so inadequate. My patients deserve so much more.
John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org
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