Ethiopia: STORY

TITLE: STORY

Another quick note that I meant to send Thursday… just a story from one of our clinics in Addis:

A 14 year old boy came in to the clinic and saw Dawn, one of our pediatricians from Phoenix. Working through an interpreter, he told her that he wanted to be seen for his “rare form of TB”. Dawn did a h&p on him and the story was just not making sense. She pulled in Dr. Beyda and they questioned him further and found out that both of his parents had passed away and that he was living with his grandmother. His grandmother told him that he had been diagnosed with a rare form of tuberculosis and that he needed to be on medications for the rest of his life. One day we walked by a beggar in the street and the beggar had his medicines on display with a note that said something like “Please help me – I have AIDS”. The boy looked at the medicines and realized that they were the same medications that he was on. His grandmother had not told him the truth. When he asked her, she told him that he did have AIDS but that he would have to continue to tell people that he had TB or else he would be ostracized. It was an unbelievably sad and shocking story. Although the Care Centers that Dr. Beyda works with using only enroll younger children, Dr. Beyda immediately got him enrolled in the program so that he can continue to get counseling, food, clothing, and education.