Judy

Border Child Protection and Rights is a different site under DEP, in Mae Chan, a half hour south of Mae Sai. The children there have been rescued from abusive or hazardous living situations with their families, usually involving drugs. Judy, the 9 year old girl I met this week, was taken out of custody from her mother two years ago. It was discovered that Judy was held at knife point by her mother, who made her hold live dogs and cats down while her mother slaughtered them live at the scalp. In two years at the new site, she was able to rekindle a different kind of family; one where she could act like a child, play and learn, and never have to worry about someone threatening her with a knife. Two weeks ago, Judy had an epileptic seizure that put her into a coma. They told the director of our NGO, Sompop, “Prepare.” Surprisingly, however, she did wake up a few days ago, but not as herself. The director explained all of this to me as I was sitting in the passenger seat of the car and he drove to Chiang Rai’s hospital. Chiang Rai would be the closest “major” city to Mae Sai, but its hospital is still pretty ghetto as far as hospitals go…maybe not quite as bleak as Mae Sai’s, but still a bit pathetic in its equipment and inventory.

Having never met this girl before, I didn’t really understand why Sompop asked me to come with him to the hospital.
Rather, I’m not really sure I believed him in the car ride back when he told me the doctors wouldn’t talk to him unless there was a white person beside him asking some of the questions. That would be an intense and self-deprecating, xenophobic thing to do, if it happened to be the case. Not to mention completely despicable and appalling, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions based on what one person tells me, even if he is the director of the organization I work for.

We found Judy in a room with other children where she was lying in bed. A staff member from BCPR was holding her hand. It looked like she just completely lost control of her motor skills. One hand and one leg was tied to the bars of the bed and her other limbs and head struggled and flailed about from one side of the bed to the other. There was a tube going into her nose and a contraption taped to her mouth; looked like something that was intended for a throat cancer patient. There was no doctor around at that point and so we hung out with Judy for a while, felt her head which had broken out in sweats. We tried to see if her eyes would focus on anything. They were open, but they weren’t registering anything, at least it didn’t seem like they were.

An hour later, when a nurse told us a doctor was on his way, we were ushered into the doctor’s office where there were chairs for us. We sat down for a while in silence when Sompop turned to me and asked, “What do you think her chances are?” I looked up at him, “Chances of living?” He nodded, “Yes,” My eyes darted around the floor in confusion and discomfort. Is this a trick question? “Um, I really have no idea, Sompop” I’m a stupid 22 year old, I don’t know anything, “I think the doctor should be answer that question better than I could.” Was he being serious? Is that just supposed to be small talk? The doctor came in.

She and Sompop exchanged some apparently meaningless banter in Thai because after a few seconds, Sompop turned to me and asked, “What are your questions for her?” Like I was supposed to have had a set of questions written on a legal pad in front of me. “Um…has she suffered brain damage?” Sompop translated for me and the doctor spat something back out. Sompop said to me, “The brain scan came out normal, so no.” Could have fooled me. Sompop looked at me again, anticipating my next question. This was all because I’m white, he said so himself. “Is she going to live?” Again it went through Sompop before it went to the Doctor. And again through Sompop once the answer came back to me. She didn’t know. These were really obvious questions that I’m sure Sompop was wondering himself and would have asked if I weren’t there. It seemed ludicrous to me that this dialogue, which really only needed two people, somehow necessitated three people, specifically me. This went on back and forth for a while until we established that once Judy recovered enough of her strength, she’d be ambulanced over to Chiang Mai. And from there, if necessary, helicoptered over to Bangkok. As of now, she wouldn’t survive the ambulance ride over and they said there’s no place for a helicopter to land anywhere in Chiang Rai. Sompop seemed placated somewhat and it seemed all of his questions were answered. So we left and he thanked me, as if I was doing something out of the realm of his capabilities.

I’ve yet to decide if this was supposed to be a lesson of sorts from Sompop or if he really needed a white person at his side to talk to the doctor. He was very adamant about the fact that without Judy’s parents around, the next best thing to show to a doctor was that a white person had something invested in her. I haven’t the foggiest idea where this comes from. Maybe because they see foreigners as an asset to their economy, they wouldn’t want to do anything that would displease us. But with or without this dynamic between locals and foreigners, does this change a doctor’s volition to help a dying patient, a nine year old kid, to the best of his abilities?