Martin Chambers Ecuador Trust

I have just come back from a second visit today to Javier who is dying of Leukemia. He is a 35 year-old father of three kids and lives in our sector typically in a raised-up bamboo house. The family, who I know from their kids being at our school, came this morning – could I go and see their brother who was seriously ill. Having Leukemia must be bad enough but, compound it with poverty, and it is almost unbearable. Of course, even although it was 9am, it was still incredibly hot and I was sweating by the time I got into their house – I thought must Javier be like in this heat. There he was lying (dying) on his thin mattress with only a bed sheet for protection. All of his family was gathered round: his three young kids (the eldest is 16), his elderly mother, and his brothers and sisters (10 of them). And I thought how unjust life is – if he was at home, he would be afforded the best of treatment in a very good hospital. But here he was – poor and dying – with not a cent to put off the pain. So I gave what was in my pocket for tablets and medicines. As the day wore on though it became clear that that donation for treatment was going to be in vain – Javier took a turn for the worse. I was called out again and said the ‘Prayers for the Dying’. I left them tonight with a heavy heart (10pm) saying prayers – I shall go again tomorrow and see … Of course, this visit is hard on the heels of another sick visit to Jacqueline, a mother-of-two who lives up at the Divino Nino chapel – the poorest of all parts of the Parish. She is 30 year-old and is suffering from acute kidney failure: all her insides have swollen up and, after having made an initial visit, I said I would be back the next day to speak to the husband about how best to take Jacqueline’s treatment forward. Sadly when I went back the next day, she was already away to hospital – to the Luis Vernaza Hospital (the hospital of the poor where even the sick wait around on metal beds in the ‘waiting room’). Both of these cases I thought just show up the difference between health care back home and health care here. The system is so difficult to break in to and I can only hope that what little help we can give from Scotland will give some sort of dignity to their illness or to their dying.