07/04/2025
This story by dindi is worth sharing to all privileged people:
Last week, I received the kind of phone call that sends a chill down your spine.
My sister, frantic and barely coherent, was screaming on the other end of the line.
“There’s been an accident… the children… they’re on the ground… they’re not moving… Please help!”
A trailer had plowed into their car. Twisted metal. Broken limbs. Silence where there should have been cries.
They were 80 kilometers away. And I knew—painfully, helplessly—that I couldn’t reach them in time. I had to hope. Hope that someone nearby would be kind enough… skilled enough… present enough… to save their lives.
And in that moment, I was reminded of something we all forget far too easily—especially those in positions of power and privilege: You can get into an accident anywhere. And when that happens, you will not be rushed to your favorite private hospital in the city. You will be taken to the nearest facility—where what happens next depends entirely on whether we, as a nation, cared enough to equip it.
If we don’t staff our rural hospitals…
If we don’t provide the basics—oxygen, trauma support, emergency care…
If we let health centers in our villages rot in neglect…
Then one day, our silence will come for us or someone we love.
Your gold-plated insurance card won’t save you when every second counts.
Your political connections won’t piece together a broken body in a place with no doctors, no equipment, no hope.
I will never forget the day a visiting Minister of Health from a neighboring country was wheeled into our ward, registered simply as “unknown African male.”
He had a head injury.
We didn’t have the tools to treat him.
By the time someone realized who he was and transferred him to a better-equipped facility, the damage was irreversible.
That moment haunts me.
Because it proves—without a doubt—that dignity, safety, and survival should never depend on geography or privilege.
Everyone, whether in a remote village or in the capital city, whether rich or poor, deserves access to functional, compassionate, timely healthcare.
I rushed to the hospital where my sister and her children had been taken.
Within the hour, I was there.
And what I found brought tears to my eyes—not from despair, but from gratitude.
Dedicated doctors, kind nurses, surgical teams who acted fast, spoke gently, and gave us hope when we had none.
We often hear the bad stories. We rarely speak of their sacrifices, their relentless service under impossible conditions.
To every health worker who stood with my family that day—thank you.
And as I look at this mangled wreckage of that car, my heart broke again… but this time with gratitude.
They are alive.
We thank God.
But we cannot keep leaving survival to luck.
We must do better.
Because someday, it won’t be “them.”
It will be you.
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