“You can’t just sit and watch”
By Susan Yungbluth, Recovery room nurse
I first decided to accompany my husband Joe, a nurse anesthetist, on his second trip to Bangladesh because his stories from his first trip and the pictures he took were so riveting to me. I had to see for myself; I felt a draw to go and help the mission in whatever way I could.
Joe and I have always gotten more from the giving than the receiving. It sounds like a cliché but when you experience that feeling then you know it is not just a cliché. We have done other types of things like foster care and foreign exchange students and we have traveled a lot of the world. When you travel, you realize that there is a bigger world out there and people who need help. You can’t just sit and watch if you have the means and will to help. Once you do some of these things then the feeling becomes contagious and you want to do more if you can.
Going to Bangladesh makes you understand that there are degrees of human suffering, the likes of which people in the United States have never endured. It also makes you understand just how unimportant some things in life really are in the grand scheme of the world. Perhaps the biggest lesson for me is that you can have nothing and be happy!
There is not just one moment that makes a most memorable experience for me. The best part of the experience in working with Project Bangladesh is the interaction between people who come from such different world views but yet are alike. My most famous quote about my experience there is that “A mother is a mother - no matter in what country she is. I witness this every time we care for a child in Bangladesh. A mother worries for her child in any part of the world. It’s human instinct and we may not be able to communicate with words but we communicate that sentiment somehow.
Making a difference now, not later
By Joe Yungbluth, Nurse anesthetist
Why did I join Project Bangladesh? I felt I was at a stage in my life when I could give back to people something more than just money. I was hoping to be able to make a difference in the lives of those not as fortunate as myself. I had attempted surgical missions in the past but they never happened for one reason or another. I worked with Dr. Sobhan, who had gone on two prior missions using the services of two anesthesiologists from my group. I felt that this was right for me. I asked him about joining a trip, he agreed and I went to Bangladesh for the first time in January 2001 and again in November 2006, February 2008 and this last mission in March 2009. I found it to be extremely challenging and personally and professionally rewarding. To this date, I am not sure who gets more from each mission: the patients I provide anesthesia to, or myself. I guess I will just have to keep going until I can answer that question.
Rita’s story
In the United States, we sometimes take for granted that we have access to a a great healthcare system. True, we don’t all have insurance. (I’ve been without health insurance, so I know what this is like firsthand). True, healthcare can be very expensive. But healthcare is there when and if we really, really need it. That’s not always so in other countries.
Rita, 26, and the mother of three children, has lived with two goiters since she was young. The lumps didn’t bother her when she was a child, but since she had her own children, the goiters seem to have grown larger. When she heard Americans were coming to this hospital in Bhairab, Bangladesh, she thought they might be able to help her.
“I’m afraid it might choke me or cause me to lose my life,” she said of her goiters. “I have to listen to all kinds of abuse because people make fun of me. I’m hurt inside and I feel very bad.”
Rita’s husband clung close to her. You could see the love and concern in his eyes as Dr. Ajmal Sobhan and I interviewed Rita just minutes before her operation. Rita’s husband was on the verge of tears when Dr. Mark Pomeranz, the anaesthesiologist, and Kathleen App, the nurse, escorted Rita from the bare, yellow waiting room into the operating room. No wheelchairs or gurneys here. Patients walked, hobbled, or sometimes got carried on stretchers, even up stairs and right after surgery.
Inside the operating room, Mark put Rita under. He found it didn’t take much to knock out Rita and other patients. Unlike Americans, most of the Bangladeshi patients had never taken drugs, not even aspirin or ibuprofen.
As Mark worked his magic, someone turned on the two wall-mounted fans. A window was cracked slightly open just a couple feet away from a tray of surgical instruments. Sharon Greene-Golden, a certified sterile technician, carried instruments in and out of the OR all through the surgery. In fact, doctors, nurses, surgical technicians and hospital personnel constantly walked in and out of the OR as if they were in their best friend’s home. Accordingly, the Americans had to adjust their sterilization expectations lower.
Dr. Liz O’Neil performed surgery for four hours. Rita’s two goiters weighed a total of one pound. According to the medical professionals I was with, you rarely see goiters of this size in the United States. Americans would have had this problem diagnosed earlier and taken care of immediately.
Fortunately, Rita will be fine and goiter-free. I saw her and her husband and son a few times after surgery. She looked like she was in a bit of pain but managed to smile once or twice. It was beautiful to see.
(You can see more pictures of Rita in the second half of the Project Bangladesh video.)
Giving back
By Ajmal Sobhan, one of the 16 founding physicians of Project Bangladesh
Our whole mission is based on giving back. We consider ourselves privileged and lucky and we feel we can make a difference in the life of others less fortunate. It is only when we consider all people as a part of our own family that we can be proud of ourselves. When we meet people coming from distant villages and change their lives for the better, I think we have achieved something the written words cannot express. We feel humbled.