We’d already guessed there was a problem at the health post—we hadn’t received the last several monthly statistical reports. As a Peace Corps volunteer in the Central African Republic in the early 1990s, I reviewed these reports as part of my job at the regional health office. Another part of my job was to join a supervisory team as it traveled over dirt roads to check on health facilities from hospitals down to the village health posts staffed by a single nurse. A few months into my assignment, on our way to the provincial hospital, the team decided to stop by this particular health post to find out why we weren’t receiving reports.
That’s from “A Face in a Village,” the February Reflections essay in AJN by Susi Wyss, the author of a well-received recent novel, The Civilized World (Henry Holt, 2011). Set in Africa, the novel, like this essay, was inspired by the author’s international health career. In this essay, Wyss recalls a vivid first encounter with the ravages of AIDS and the hopelessness it inspired. (Click through to the PDF version for a cleaner read.)—JM, senior editor
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I have a friend who is an RN and serving as a Peace Corp volunteer in Africa. She has shared her experience through letters and they are very inspiring.
Regarding the essay “A Face in a Village”, it emphasizes on the spread of HIV, but it personally reminds me of the conditions in which some health care providers have to work under in some countries. First, when it mentions that the nurse could have easily been infected by a needle stick, it reminds me of all the different syringe set-ups available to the nurses at my job for needle-stick-prevention. Another part that made me acknowledge nurses around the world was when the author, Wyss, Susi, asks: “If he’d known the risks of contracting AIDS from his profession, would he still have opted to become a nurse?” Consequently, I ask myself, if I lived in a developing country, with scarce resources for health care providers, and a harsh environment in which to take care of sick people, would I have chosen this career? Would I love it as much as I do regardless of the poor circumstances? This essay, like other documents I have read on global health issues, made me aware of everything I should be grateful for.