Unwanted Child

A few weeks ago there was a medical team from Lakeland, Florida who came to Coram Deo for a couple of medical clinics. One of the patients who were seen was a sick little boy who had bit his lip during a seizure due to a high fever. He was very weak and we brought him to Bernard Mevs Hospital. He was admitted to the pediatrics unit and received good care from the Haitian and foreign medical staff. He had a bad case of pneumonia and brain damage caused by the seizures and high fever. By the grace of God and good medical care, ten days later this young boy recovered from his bout of pneumonia. We paid for his hospital bill and asked the mother where she would like us to bring them. She told us that she lived in the Rte. Frere area of Port-au-Prince, but that she needed to go see someone in the Delmas 65 area. We drove her as far as the ravine would let us and she said that she would walk the rest of the way to the place she was going. We felt good that this boy was going home with his mother.

We found out today that after we dropped the mother off she backtracked and took a tap-tap back to Bernard Mevs Hospital. She told the security guard that our vehicle had broken down and asked if she could wait inside the gates until we had fixed our truck. The security guards know us and let her in with her son. She went to the clinic area and left her son on the bench and walked out of the gates never to return to the hospital again. Now the hospital has an abandoned child to look after until a placement is found. It is sad that the mother used our name to get in the hospital gates to abandoned her child. We are going to tell Bernard Mevs Hospital staff to refuse access to anyone who says they are coming from Coram Deo, Karen unless accompanied by Amos or myself. I don't know how a mother can do what this mother did. If her child would have been left untreated he would have died. Pray that a placement is found for this child.