Land of Contrasts

South Africa is often referred to as the land of contrasts and it is very true - last time I wrote I was full of the joys of holidays and the priviledge of being able to travel and see different places. However since returning to work life has been filled with a lot less fun and laughter. At the hospital we have had a terrible few weeks with a large volume of children coming to us in extremis, often with little we can do or offer in terms of medical care. Our paediatric mortality has shot through the roof since the 1st of April as we have lost litterally a child every day. In turn it is upsetting and depressing staff, as we search for reasons we begin to second guess ourselves and question our own skills, however I believe we are continuing to give the best possible care that we can. One aspect that is very striking in our search for answers is the number of children we have had recently who are very ill but who are HIV -ve. For example in August any child admitted to our hospital with malnutrition you could safely assume to be +ve however in the last number of weeks we have had a number of children admitted with severe malnutrition and some have died who have been negative. It seems that across the world food and energy prices have been climbing and we certainly can see a significant increase in our supermarket bills in the nine short months since we arrived here - however for those in this community who previously were just managing to survive it has been enough to tip the balance and already the children are suffering.
Please pray for the poor in the world at this time and especially remember the children.
K x