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A Hospitalization And Death

Tuesday, November 21st, 2017

The public hospital is like a jail!

Once you go in you can’t come and go.  They demand a family member stay with the patient at all times.  He took night shift from his siblings and had to sleep on the floor.  Couldn’t take in a blanket or mat. Couldn’t take in food for himself because she was fasting for tests and they don’t trust the family member not to give the patient food.  Armed guard at the gate.

Anyway, David’s mom died last monday. Got pneumonia in one lung…probably contracted in the hospital. I was up with David all night helping deliver her papers, getting a casket, shopping for food for the wake. The body stays in the house for 24 hours with people coming in and out visiting and sharing food. Then the body is buried and people steam in and out from 7-8 every night for 9 nights being served food, chocolate and mescal.

I see now why we have funerals. Keeps the family busy and protects from shock during initial mourning. Nothing like a death to make things crystal clear.

They had a lot of pan and chocolate left over from the wake so I drove David and his brothers to the Hospital Civil last night where there are always about 100-200 people waiting…to make appts, take tests, get results for tests and any # of other things. Everything has to be done in person. And they wait hours and hours. There were lots of other volunteers there with food, coffee chocolate etc.

But then you have people like the head of accounting of one hospital, David said, who absconded with millions of pesos. And nothing done about it. And of course you have the head of a very wealthy family here, Tenorio, who was the head of the entire health system of the state,  arrested and imprisoned.

I don’t understand.  If they can imprison a guy like him why can’t they do it with all the others?  Oh, I know. It comes down to politics. He was on the wrong side of something.  It seems the government would just like the very poorest of the poor to just disappear.

Oregon Fall Colors

Monday, November 20th, 2017

My renter, Sharon, took photos of our yard in Salem. A nice respite from recent days in Oaxaca.

The Resistance Continues

Friday, November 10th, 2017

David is being watched even still and they still haven’t set aside his sentence. I have given him keys to my apt and offered my apt as a safe house.  They are just harassing him. Had to sign ... [Continue reading this entry]