Three
days in a Yemeni cholera camp
A
nurse attends to a cholera-infected patient at treatment centre in
the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Yemen on October 8, 2017 [File:
Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad]
On
April 18, I was sitting on a small chair next to bed number seven at
the end of a stuffy hospital ward in Hodeidah, Yemen's key port
city, thinking I was in the midst of a scene from a horror
film.
I
felt suffocating pain in my chest as I looked at my sleeping mother.
She had come down with cholera.
As
the woman in the nearby bed moved, I saw a hole in the middle of it.
I thought it was broken until I realised each bed in the ward was
like this and under each hole there was a bucket, which periodically
was being emptied by hospital staff.
Everything
had happened very quickly. I was in Sanaa when my mother called in
the evening to tell me that she had had severe diarrhoea. She had
taken medicine but had not felt better. In the early hours of the
next day, my brothers called as well to tell me that my mother's
condition had deteriorated considerably and that they had taken her
to a private hospital.
Suspecting
that she was infected with cholera, the hospital officials had
refused to admit her and had sent her to the only medical facility
that treated cholera patients: Al-Thawra Hospital.
I
rushed back to Hodeidah. I was racing against death to see my
mother. It took seven hours of travel by land to get back to my
city. The war has closed off almost all routes. Had airports worked,
it would have taken me half an hour.
At
noon, I arrived and went straight to the hospital. At first, the
guards did not allow me to enter because visits were not permitted
at that time, but after listening to my tearful appeals, they let me
in. They asked me to disinfect my hands in a chlorine tank and took
me to the women's cholera ward.
The
nightmares of a Yemeni mother
Once
inside, I searched anxiously the faces of the women in the ward
looking for my mother. I found her in the last bed at the end of the
ward, looking extremely pale.
My
mother received me in tears. She seemed devastated. "This is
frightening. I have lost the ability to go to the bathroom. I am
like a child. I cannot control myself," she said, with
trembling lips.
I
did not know much about cholera, except that it could be a fatal
disease. When it first appeared in my city in 2016, we were told to
be careful when washing fruits and vegetables and disinfect water
tanks as often as possible. But as the war went on, destroying
infrastructure, disrupting basic services and food provision, the
disease spread and struck an increasing number of people.
Patients
were initially kept in tents separate from the hospital, but as
cases multiplied the hospital authorities had to transform the
makeshift camp into a permanent ward. Since the beginning of the
outbreak, Yemen has
seen close to 1.5 million suspected cholera cases; in my city
Hodeidah, there have been some 46,900
cases since
the beginning of the year - one of them my own mother.
At
first, she refused to let me stay with her at the ward, fearing that
I would get infected. She was afraid that my pregnancy was making me
more susceptible. She pointed to a pregnant woman called Mariam who
was also getting treated at the ward; she could not take a full dose
of medicine and, as a result, her health condition
was deteriorating.
I
asked the nurses how long a cholera patient would stay in the ward.
They said that it ranged from three to 10 days, depending on the
immunity of the patient, which is the weakest in pregnant women and
children.
I
decided to take the risk anyway and sit with my mother every day. My
sister and I took shifts: I was there during the day and she was
staying overnight.
It
was painful to watch all these women struggle against this vile
disease. It was eating away not only at their bodies but also at
their spirit. On the third day, my mother's condition deteriorated
after she refused to eat and take the medicine.
Overnight,
she had seen Mariam, who was nine months pregnant, go into
convulsions and a coma. It was with great difficulty that doctors
and nurses were able to save her and stabilise her condition. My
sister told me that my mother's eyes had been fixated on the
pregnant woman's body as she feared she may be living her last
moments.
It
was as if my mother's fate was linked to Mariam's. I prayed for her;
I felt her survival meant the survival of my mother.
By
the evening, Mariam had improved significantly and was able to get
out of bed. Her belly was very large and as she stood up, she swayed
a bit but was able to keep her balance and go to the toilet by
herself.
It
was the first time in my life that I saw a miracle happen. My mother
was so happy; she even cried when she saw Mariam stand up.
The
people who made that miracle happen were the medical staff, who
despite all the difficulties and dangers of their work, did their
jobs with great devotion. The ward was staffed 24 hours a day, with
nurses doing 12-hour shifts for as little as $250 a month - a
meagre remuneration for their heroic effort and the high risk of
contracting a deadly disease they were exposed to on a daily basis.
During the few days I spent at the ward, their work did not seem to
slow down; they were admitting at least five people suspected of
having cholera every day.
I
was extremely happy when the next day the doctors finally told us
that my mother has recovered enough to be able to go home. It was a
great relief to finally be able to leave this scene of horror at the
cholera ward.
War
has devastated us and left us many paths to death, but only a narrow
one to life. We do not wish onto anyone the pain that we have felt,
but we do hope that those who have started this war will meet the
fate they deserve for causing so much suffering and death to
innocent men, women and children.
by Manal Oaed Alwesabi
Reference: aljazeera.com
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