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Looking Away (Again)

2020-01-28 · letter vlog · John · 6:18 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development · mode: Personal essay · tags: fundraising ask, heavy topic, self correction

John reports how far Koidu Government Hospital in Kono has come since 2014 and how inadequate it still is, admits he looked away from a dying child there as he had in Ethiopia years earlier because he had not treated these preventable deaths as emergencies, and asks viewers to give and pay attention to the Maternal Center of Excellence.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Visiting Koidu Government Hospital: its state in 2014, colonialism, war and Ebola, and its progress since

  • ★★ John says that when he and Sarah went to Sierra Leone they visited Koidu Government Hospital, the only hospital in Kono District, which has come a very long way. — 00:00:00 · Sarah Urist Green, Sierra Leone, Koidu Government Hospital
  • ★★★ John says when Partners In Health began supporting the hospital in 2014 it lacked consistent electricity and running water, an emergency department, a blood bank and working x-rays; the maternity ward had a dirt floor. — 00:00:00 · Partners In Health, Koidu Government Hospital
  • ★★ John says after the devastations of colonialism Sierra Leone never had much money to build a health system, which the civil war and then a horrifying Ebola outbreak weakened further. — 00:00:29 · Sierra Leone
  • ★★★ John says five years later the hospital was vastly different: clean maternity wards, a working emergency department, a lab, plentiful medication and many well-trained health workers, with more safe deliveries and fewer stillbirths. — 00:00:29 · Koidu Government Hospital
  • ★★★ John says the decision-to-incision time for emergency C-sections at the hospital, often over three hours a couple of years ago, now averages one hour eight minutes. — 00:00:58 · Koidu Government Hospital

00:01:27 — The hospital's inadequacy, looking away from a dying child, the 2014 Looking Away video, and not doing enough

  • ★★★ John says the hospital is still woefully inadequate: only 48 maternal beds for a population of 500,000, no NICU, incubators or ventilators. — 00:01:27 · Koidu Government Hospital
  • ★★★ At the hospital John saw a mother with a young child in the pediatric ward; he thinks the child was probably dying. (hedged) — 00:01:27 · Koidu Government Hospital
  • ★★★ John says he looked away: he didn't want to gawk, didn't know how to help in that moment, and it was awful to see a mother in such pain and a child suffering. — 00:01:51
  • ★★ John says he has worked in a children's hospital and held the hands of children as they died. — 00:01:51
  • ★★★ John says most children who die in Sierra Leone die of conditions we know how to treat or prevent. — 00:01:51 · Sierra Leone, child mortality
  • ★★★ John says most mothers who die in childbirth there die for want of an ambulance ride, a blood transfusion or an emergency C-section: these deaths are preventable and have been for decades. — 00:02:20 · maternal death
  • ★★ John recalls making a video from Ethiopia six years ago called Looking Away, about listening to and supporting people living in absolute poverty. — 00:02:20 · extreme poverty
  • ★★★ John says in those years he did some things and gave some money but made no serious commitment to listen better or to focus on the needs of the poor in an ongoing way. — 00:02:20
  • ★★★ John says he was looking at a child who very possibly wouldn't be dying had he understood the problem's scope earlier and given more to those solving it, which is part of why he looked away again. (hedged) — 00:02:50
  • ★★★ John says he understood in the abstract that Sierra Leone's maternal and child mortality crises were emergencies but had not been treating them like emergencies. — 00:02:50 · maternal death, child mortality, Sierra Leone

  • ★★★ John says he wasn't doing nearly enough with the money, power and platform he lucked into, still isn't, but is trying to do more with his money, time and attention. — 00:03:19

    “I wasn't doing nearly enough with the money and power and platform I'd lucked into to support truly vulnerable people”

00:03:48 — PIH Sierra Leone's hopeful annual report and the plan for the Maternal Center of Excellence

00:05:16 — Donations, the matching fund, solidarity through attention, and thanks for not looking away

  • ★★★ John says total commitments are now close to $13 million, which is amazing, but there is still a ways to go. — 00:05:16
  • ★★★ John asks viewers to make a monthly or one-time donation at pih.org/hankandjohn, each dollar matched by generous people within Nerdfighteria. — 00:05:16 · Partners In Health, Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ John points those able to give $2,000 or more to a link to join the matching fund. — 00:05:16
  • ★★ John says he is talking to every rich person who will take his calls and doing whatever he can to drum up money. — 00:05:16
  • ★★★ John thinks that if the project works, it will be because thousands of people come together in solidarity with people in Sierra Leone. — 00:05:45 · Sierra Leone
  • ★★★ John says solidarity can be donations but also listening, paying attention, reading annual reports, or telling friends and family about these efforts. — 00:05:45
  • ★★★ John says complex, systemic, long-term problems that demand complex, systemic, long-term solutions are easy to look away from, and thanks viewers for not looking away. — 00:05:45

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description corrects the video: the Looking Away video was made five, not six, years ago. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: child mortality · Koidu Government Hospital · Maternal Center of Excellence · maternal death · Partners In Health · Sierra Leone

Also: People: Jon Lascher · Sarah Urist Green

Organizations: Ministry of Health and Sanitation (Sierra Leone) · Wellbody Clinic

Concepts: Caesarean section · cancer · colonialism · diabetes · extreme poverty · malnutrition · mental disorder · neonatal intensive care unit

Places: Ethiopia · Kono District

Events: Sierra Leone Civil War · Western African Ebola virus epidemic

Replies to

  • continues · Looking Away — “Six years ago, I made a video from Ethiopia called Looking Away”

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