Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Agenzia Fides) - On January 30 of this year, the first doctor from Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital went to Haiti to meet the health needs of earthquake survivors. Michael Salata, a pediatrician, worked for the Hospital with the support network created on the spot. Returning from the trip, he wanted to tell of his moving experience. "The day of departure from Port-au-Prince, I tried to impress on my heart the faces of as many of those children as possible. Leaving our department at “Bouquet de Fleur” was really tough! There were still many children in critical condition, whose life is hanging by a thread and for them there are very few resources, just one false move and everything can fall apart. Every day I mentally do my 'walk through the department' and I see their eyes, their faces, hear their screams when they are hungry. They were two weeks that have marked my life forever. Too often we are accustomed to seeing tragedies on television and in newspapers, it seems almost normal that there are all this suffering, or worse, it's almost like watching a movie ... then you turn off the television and return to your life of every comfort, in which we lack nothing! But when you are inside that movie, everything changes. I held a child who had died, in my arms, the eyes of that prematurely-born baby that died penetrated my soul, they asked for my help ... and we couldn't do it ... I cannot find the answers to all this. Beyond the history of every people and the responsibilities of our countries over time, even today there are millions of people, children living in absolute poverty, with nothing to eat. They do not know if their newborn is going to survive, or if a small infection will take him away in the blink of an eye. How many times I felt dejected, helpless before those children who were dying, and I felt frustrated because I knew what I could do if he were here, while there I could only standby and watch, I could only try and place that little boy in the arms of his mother waiting for him to fly to heaven, like an angel. All that stays inside you and, as it seems, the tragedy is not over." (AP) (Agenzia Fides 3/2/2010)
