Healers

I finally went to the doctor to get rid of my lingering scourge. It had simply been too many days of feeling exhausted and feverish. I went to a fancy new clinic in Primaveri this time, and paid $10 for a consultation with a very pleasant Romanian doctor who took my blood pressure, listened to my lungs, and prescribed me antibiotics, which cost $30 at the pharmacy. I don't know if it's because I was a foreigner, but there was no paperwork, no waiting in the waiting room, no filling out of medical histories, no questions about allergies. The no waiting part probably had to do with my being able to pay the full price of the visit, which for many Romanians is very expensive. But I'm still not very clear on the workings (or lack thereof) of the Romanian health care system.

The first time I went to the doctor in Romania, I went to the first place on the list given to us by Halfbright at our orientation. It turned out to be in Ghencea, a Bucharest suburb full of muddy puddles, gray cement high-rises, skinny stray dogs, and building supply stores (a pretty typical Bucharest neighborhood, actually). The doctor there was a newly arrived missionary from Texas, about my age, whose wife had long "had Eastern Europe on her heart." So he, his wife, and their three children had moved to Ghencea so that he could minister to street children at this clinic. He was particularly concerned about the abortion rate in Romania, which is currently equal to the birth rate. Alarming indeed, but so was this poster in his office (which I can't seem to insert right-side up):



The first panel reads, "God, why haven't you sent us people to cure cancer and AIDS, to solve the problem of world hunger and all our social problems?" God replies from above, "I sent them!"

In the second panel, the man asks, "Well, then where are they?" and God responds: "They were aborted!"

This is a good, clear, realistic message to send to the people of Romania, don't you think? Your unborn child is the next Jonas Salk. Therefore, if you abort, you're effectively killing thousands of the disease-afflicted at the same time, not to mention pissing off God.

Anyway, I genuinely appreciate the fact that the doctor loves the Lord enough to live in Ghencea and provide low-cost medical care to Romanians. I would have a very difficult time making that kind of sacrifice. I also agree that abortion should not be used as a form of birth control, and that reducing its very high rate here is an admirable goal--through ACCESSIBLE FAMILY PLANNING SERVICES. Not through bullshit religious propaganda that only serves to lay a guilt trip on an exceedingly poor and already God-fearing population. Stating that an unborn human life has potential is one thing; naming abortion as the cause of cancer and AIDS is another, and putting such a poster in the waiting room of a doctor's office is medically irresponsible. Needless to say, I did not go back to see Dr. Texas.

Fortunately, Alexander Fleming (who discovered penicillin) wasn't aborted, so at least my bronchitis is cured.