ABSTRACT
For many people, the thought of medical services in a Third World country conjures up stereotypical images of that colonial trio – poverty, ignorance and disease. They visualize them being dealt with by another picture-book character, the dedicated aid and charity worker who struggles out of the goodness of his or her heart to save the lives of these anonymous victims. Eritrea shatters these myths. Here the images are of crops destroyed by Ethiopian soldiers, towns flattened to rubble, young people permanently disabled, children emaciated by famine because food is not allowed to reach them, babies with terrible injuries and burns, young Eritrean women doctors in mobile units at the battlefront, traditional midwives with modern kits, and miles of camouflaged hospital buildings where the most complex operations are being performed. These images force one to face reality: the main and overwhelming cause of illness, injury and pain here is the long and inherently genocidal war. Health and medical services, if they are to be effective, must be a systematic part of the process of development for and by the people.
