* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Lois Fergusson is the Medical Manager of Medair’s Emergency Response Team in South Sudan. Medair is an international emergency relief and recovery organisation working in some of the world’s most remote and devastated places.
“Yesterday, I met my South Sudanese counterpart. And though no one has held a gun to her head, ready to pull the trigger, this conflict will kill her all the same.
Just 32 years old, she was brought to the Medair clinic by seven family members, four of whom had carried her in a homemade blanket basket. She weighs so little that one person probably could have managed it alone. Two years ago she was diagnosed with tuberculosis, an infection that can occur anywhere in your body, yet most commonly starts in your lungs. She and her family recognised how unwell she was and took her to be admitted at the MSF hospital in Leer. She was two months into her treatment when the events of 15 December 2013 triggered a rapidly unfolding crisis that included the destruction of the hospital where she was being treated and sent her and her family on their first flight into the bush across the swamps of Unity State.
After many months, once they felt safe, they returned to Leer. After some time she restarted treatment for her continuing tuberculosis infection, by this time most likely no longer confined to one part of her body. Only weeks after this hope was kindled in her and her loved ones, they were forced to flee yet again, anywhere they could.
In 2015 the only treatment she has received for this devastating multi-system illness is paracetamol.
I met her and her seven family members, sitting with them on the floor. I heard their story, and I looked at her, knowing the signs that my diagnostic mind was taking in – her sunken eyes, her caked tongue and cracked lips, her frame as fragile as a bird. I was relieved when she opened her eyes, held out her hand and we exchanged greetings in her own language.
It takes six months to rid an individual of tuberculosis. Each time her treatment has been cut short by the next unwelcome intrusion of violence, the infection not only remains, but grows stronger, the bacteria becoming resistant to the drugs used in that failed attempt. Sitting on the groundsheet of a tent with basic drugs at my disposal, without a way to prove it, I strongly suspect she has multi-drug resistant TB. She now has not a single site of infection but a widespread dispersal of tiny growths of infection throughout her body – bone, lung, abdomen, liver.
The time it takes for my words to be translated leaves my mind some space, a window of opportunity to think through what I can do. With the combination of syrups for children, basic medications, and maybe a nutritional supplement, how is it possible to ensure her death is comfortable and dignified? I long to provide comfort to her and a sense of purpose to her family in their actions and their care of her. I give four of them one responsibility each, fluid-based medicines, and some nutrition supplement.
Her body will lose the battle against these tiny growths that are scattered through her vital organs. Just as her country appears to be losing its battle for a more hopeful and peaceful future.
She and I could have grown up together rather than worlds apart. We share a gender and an age but, it feels, very little else. An uneven meeting, a very unlevel playing field. I have not known the suffering and desperation that she has walked through with her family, the losses she has suffered on the way. I am here out of choice, with my education, my skills, and my faith.
I have longed to bring her hope and healing. Our circumstances here might limit that to hope. But hope is a powerful medicine. Just to sit with her here and to hold her hand, I can show her and her family that they are not alone. She is why I am here; to hold onto hope and to hold it out to others.
I use my knowledge and all the resources at my disposal to think through ways to care for her, to comfort her, to give her dignity in health and in illness. When I check her mental state by asking her to name the people with her, she starts cracking jokes to them, everyone enjoying the laughter she brings.
Her name is Mariam. She is another victim of this conflict. She will not be forgotten.”
For the press, please contact:
Nath Fauveau, Press Relations Officer (English, French & German)
nathalie.fauveau@medair.org
For enquiries and interviews from South Sudan, please contact Diana Gorter, Communications Officer (Dutch, English) comms-sds@medair.org +211 (0)927 475 150
Medair’s South Sudan programme is supported by the EC Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection, the United States Agency for International Development, Common Humanitarian Fund, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Swiss Solidarity, the Belgian Government and private donors.
To find out more about Medair in South Sudan, please click here
