Eyes are the window to the soul
We have suddenly had so many eyes to deal with! Two children with squints, one with poor vision and another with an eye condition that needs treatment to prevent eye damage now, although he should grow out of it later.
A kind optometrist has offered to help and we will invade him next Monday afternoon and see what can be done. And I have managed, through a family paediatrician, to help the little boy with the eye condition (nurses at the clinic have consistently been sending him away with eye drops and not referring him on).
Three of the children were born in South Africa (making them SA citizens) but to foreign parents. One parent is dead, another alive – but, in both cases, no birth certificates. I have tried to trace their births by telephoning the hospitals they were said to be born in. The helpful sisters in charge have looked for records, but as the mothers may have used different names (those of the babies' fathers or perhaps another family name), and as we don’t know the names, we cannot find them in the system giving proof of their nationality. They also have no baptismal certificates and only one has an immunisation card, so we need to go a more circuitous route of teachers’ and councillors’ letters.
The problem is that the nurses at the clinic say they cannot help or refer foreign children, cutting these very poor children off from any healthcare. I wonder how many health poblems are left untreated in this way – some that could infect South Africans – like TB, or ‘small’ health issues that become large and expensive because they are neglected?