Congolese luck

24 novembre 2009

I spoke to the London office yesterday and they told me this website is winding up, that if I wanted to post anything more I should do it now. My time here too is winding up; having been here seven months, I’ve got just a couple more to go, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I veer towards the philosophical.

I thought I’d write a piece about Congolese luck. I had a good example of this the other day when I was called by a smaller neighbouring hospital who wanted to refer a patient to us here in Masisi.

When I got there, I found a young man alone in a filthy all but empty ward, with a heavily bandaged leg. The nurse told me the story. He had been in the market in broad daylight when one of the soldiers posted there ostensibly for the security of the population tried to rob him.

He ran, and the soldier opened fire, hitting him four times in the leg, shattering his femur. He was obviously in great pain, so I gave the strongest pain medication I had with me and placed an inflatable splint to immobilise his leg. With a broken limb every movement is agony and to get back to Masisi we had to go over 4 hours of the bumping rutted tracks which pass for roads here.

In the event, after we had got stuck in the mud and had to dig the car out, it was 5 hours before we got back and I could hand him over to the surgical team for the emergency surgery to try and save his leg.

Afterwards, as we were packing up to go back to the base, I chatted to Carianne, the MSF supervising doctor here. Tall, elegant, and one of the most highly skilled and humane doctors I’ve worked with, like me she has worked before in the Congo.

‘He’s lucky,’ she explained, ‘He’s arrived on the same day that the Surgeon supervisor is making a visit from Brussels. He’s really experienced, especially in bullet wounds, so he’s going to do the surgery.’

‘Oh great’, I said, brightening up despite being tired from nine hours on the road, ‘that is a piece of luck’. Then I thought about this. ‘Well I suppose that’s Congolese lucky anyway. Most places in the world we’d say it’s pretty unlucky to get shot in the first place, but here in Congo we regard him as lucky coz OK, he got shot, but he got shot when the big chief of surgery is in town’.

We both reflected on this for a moment. ‘Yes’, said Carianne, and we went back to our respective tasks.

For similar reasons, I sometimes worry about being referred to as a humanitarian worker, when the only reason why I’m here is because humanity seems to be in short supply.

We see famines or war on the television, and then usually an interview with one or another of the aid agencies. Problem solved; someone like me is there to run a feeding centre or provide war surgery for the injured, and we all congratulate ourselves on being a humane and caring society.

Congolese luck – you get shot, or starve, but at least someone is there to patch things up. But most famines don’t happen without political interference, and wars don’t happen without domestic and international political support and connivance.

After two missions in DRC, I can see signs of hope here. The majority of the country is at peace after years of war, and in 2006, elections which were held to be broadly free and fair by the international community, for the first time since 1960. Progress is clearly possible.

But here in North Kivu, things remain tense, and they’re getting more so. Recently, I asked a respected Congolese colleague what he thought the future held for Masisi. He looked at me with a tired face. Here, he said, things are cyclical.

Condition Critical may be winding up, and soon I’ll be going back to my safe and comfortable life in Britain, but he’ll still be here, waiting for the next flare up of violence and displacement.

And no doubt we’ll be there to patch things up, but remember that it’s not a sign of how humane we are as a society, just a bit of Congolese luck.

Tags: Hôpital, Masisi, Chirurgie, Violence