Staggering Statistics in Ethiopia Find Hope in WHFC Humanitarian Aid

Today I presented a Grand Rounds to a group of physicians and residents in my local hospital.  The topic was health care in Ethiopia.  Obviously something near to my heart.  So the preparations were not hard at all and the delivery of the message, even easier.  What was so difficult was thinking about the numbers I was planning to present.  The staggering statistics are at times, hard to comprehend.  Intellectually I can appreciate how 1 in 16 people in Ethiopia are orphans whereas 1 in over 3,000 are orphaned in the US.  It’s an unacceptable number.  Or that 70% of all childhood deaths in Ethiopia are due to malaria, pneumonia, diarrhea or malnutrition.  All preventable.  All treatable.  Or worse, that 1 in 13 children in Ethiopia die before reaching the age of 1.  Anyone can understand the tragedy these numbers represent.  Or can they?  Maybe not until they’re living it.  So at times, as I think of these things from afar (and not living it), I feel like all I can do is get overwhelmed and utterly saddened by these facts and figures.  I mean, can we really make a difference?  And then I take a deep breath and think of the life saving work that is going on right this minute to change these statistics.  The people on the ground, like the Ethiopian Health Extension Workers (HEW’s), now numbering 30,000 across the country, are changing lives.  And a small group of them is doing that with the help of volunteer doctors who were on a recent WHFC medical mission.  On this mission, WHFC volunteer doctors trained HEW’s and Birth Attendants about the use of misoprostol to stop post-partum hemorrhage.  They held training’s, left supplies and made plans for good record keeping so that on subsequent visits they could track the project’s success and future needs.  These HEW’s and Birth Attendants are now out in their communities, ready to save a mother’s life. Ready to change the outcome for a mother in their own community.  Ready to drop the number of orphans one by one.  And so as I imagine this work, its tangible qualities with reports and photos, I can imagine, not just intellectually, but in my heart, how we can help Ethiopians to change their numbers.  WHFC is already doing it and they need our help.  The work is happening and it’s too important and too valuable to ignore.

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