Smiling Through Tears – Addin Hospital

Monday 30th August 2010

Climbing the stairs to the ward at Addin Children’s hospital in Dhaka, it was hard to prepare myself for what I might see. Sick children I guessed, but already this was like no hospital I had ever been to.

We had wound our way here through the heaving Dhaka rush-hour. Brightly painted rickshaws and  green tuk-tuks winding their way through the endless cars and battered, overcrowded buses, solemn faces gazing down at us as they passed. Horns blared almost constantly as we stopped and started our way through the city streets, with our vehicle surrounded as soon as it slowed, by the waiting beggars – from tiny white-teethed and bright-eyed children waving flowers and pointing to their mouths, to old crippled men, proffering a withered arm or gesturing to their club feet, many with something to sell which they persistently displayed through the windows till the traffic moved us on.

It was hard to ignore. The children were beautiful and charming (and knew it of course), and it was impossible to resist smiling and making faces at them. The gesture of the hand to mouth to indicate wanting money for food was one I was to become familiar with, but you quickly realised that giving money to beggars was in an unsustainable solution to poverty in the city. We were on our way to see a project making a difference to this city’s children’s lives in a much more sustainable way.

Aldin hospital was set up by Save the Children, providing free health care to the local area and with a reputation for high quality care and medical practise. Arriving at the hospital we were met by one of the doctors and taken straight to the ward where children were being treated for severe acute malnutrition (SAM), pneumonia and diarrhoea. The nurses with their long white saris and head scarves hung back shyly as we entered, the healthier children and their families quickly forming a crowd behind them as they strained to get a good luck at us and our entourage.

Within seconds I could feel my stomach twist and my head start to pound, met with the sight of children the like of which I have seen countless times on the news and documentaries but never with my own eyes. Their tiny frames and big eyes looking up from the metal beds as they lay or sat with their mothers, arms thin and legs stick thin and eyes large as they sat, so quietly. At first it seemed so intrusive to be there, we were reluctant to take pictures, but Anika, our Save the Children guide busied herself gaining consent from all the mothers there and we began to realise we had a story to tell and it was right to be there, documenting this. Some were too ill to photograph, it didn’t seem right. The mother protectively covering her unbelievably tiny, still, severely malnourished baby was one we kept a respectful distance from, and the sight of which I will never forget.

Eva and Sian and I, Liz from Save the Children UK, Anika and Kiran, our photographer, wove our way from bed to bed, learning names and stories…

Like Rahima, 3 years old and lying limp in her mother’s arms. Her mother Wasima had originally given birth to triplets but only Rahima had survived, even then coming down with pneumonia and typhoid at only a month old. The resulting developmental problems had taken Wasima to seven hospitals looking for proper help and care for her daughter, until eventually she had been referred to Aldin. She said that finally Wasima seemed to be picking up and that this was the first time she felt like her daughter was being properly attended to.

Two and a half year old Shama was sat eating rice from a bowl as I approached, her mother Rupa smiling as the translator told her I had a son Shama’s age. Shama had

been admitted 8 days ago with pneumonia and although still struggling to breathe was responding well to antibiotics. The little girl in the next bed was a stark contrast, unaware of our presence and her chest heaving as she tried to take breath. Left too long before treatment the infection had taken a firm hold on her and her heart was failing. Her father had begun to cry as he talked. Her prognosis wasn’t good.

My instinct was to cry too of course. Tears coming quickly and hard to fight back. But Anika had said as we stood, helpless, “Don’t cry else you give them no hope”, a sharp wake-up call and one I needed, and I spent the rest of the visit smiling through tears.

For there WAS hope here. And life and vibrancy, and joy, even, in amongst the sadness.

Little Sangida represented all of that. 16 months old and everything you would expect of a mischievous toddler, full of fun and curiosity. Although severely underweight, admitted with weight loss and loose stools, life and spirit shone from her eyes and her attitude as she tottered around the ward after us, peeping out from behind the bed frames as she munched hungrily on an egg, getting in as much mess and under people’s feet as you would expect any other toddler to do. She held the entire ward captivated and entertained. These children were still CHILDREN, and despite the heart-ache you couldn’t help but smile and laugh, grateful that projects like this existed to put the spring back in her little steps.

Jasmine, too, 11 years old and riddled with a skin infection caused by a reaction to the antibiotics used to treat her, couldn’t help but inspire a sense of hope and courage. Surrounded by her maternal family, her mother having died, she came to life at our presense, the distraction taking her away from illness for a while, sitting up and drawing in the colouring books Sian had bought, and chatting to Anika, playing pat-a-cake and singing rhymes.

These children were receiving good care. The majority were going to be ok. This was a good place, however hard the images were, these were children, for the most part that were getting better thanks to this facility.

You just wanted MORE for these children. Good work was being done here but you wanted more than the very few scant toys, more medicine, more trained staff, for these children to have been identified and treated quicker.

Making our way back to the car, just as the heaven’s opened and we got our real first taste of monsoon weather, water leaking through the entrance hall and the dilapidated building, it was hard not to feel shaken and raw. But we had gained a sense of the reality of the health problems facing children here and how crucial good medical care is.

Tomorrow we would be moving out the city and into rural district of Barisal to look at how Save the Children are addressing these problems on a larger scale.

Time for food, and reflection and sleep.

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Keep up to date with our Blogladesh trip by following my blog’s RSS feed and by following me on Twitter. Don’t forget to read my team-mates blogs too – Sian at Mummy Tips (@mummytips), Eva at NixdMinx (@nixdminx) and Liz from Save the Children (@lizscarff and @SaveChildrenPR)

And MOST IMPORTANTLY make sure you come and sign our petition and Press for Change, either via facebook or on the Save the Children website.

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