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American With No Medical Training Ran Center For Malnourished Ugandan Kids. 105 Died

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  sandy-2021492  •  5 years ago  •  23 comments

American With No Medical Training Ran Center For Malnourished Ugandan Kids. 105 Died

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T



Ten years ago, Renee Bach left her home in Virginia to set up a charity to help children in Uganda. One of her first moves was to start a blog chronicling her experiences.

Among the most momentous: On a Sunday morning in October 2011, a couple from a village some distance away showed up at Bach's center carrying a small bundle.

"When I pulled the covering back my eyes widened," Bach wrote in the blog. "For under the blanket lay a small, but very, very swollen, pale baby girl. Her breaths were frighteningly slow. ... The baby's name is Patricia. She is 9 months old."

Bach went on to write that Patricia had fallen sick three weeks earlier. But her parents had been unable to find anyone closer to home who could cure her.

Then, wrote Bach, "One of their relatives told them about a 'hospital' ... with a 'White Doctor.' "

Except Bach was not a doctor. She was a 20-year-old high school graduate with no medical training. And not only was her center not a hospital — at the time it didn't employ a single doctor.

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sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
1  seeder  sandy-2021492    5 years ago
"So I walk in," Kramlich recalls, "and there's this child, swollen, wheezing." Kramlich could see the blood still being transfused into Patricia's vein. "And [Bach] goes, 'You know, I think she might be having a reaction. But I don't know. Because, you know, Google says that if they're having a reaction, they'll have a rash. And I don't see a rash."

Sometimes, no care is better than bad care.

 
 
 
Enoch
Masters Quiet
1.1  Enoch  replied to  sandy-2021492 @1    5 years ago

Dear Friend Sandy: Dr. Swango all over again.

Not new.

Always turns the stomach.

P&AB.

Enoch.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
1.1.1  seeder  sandy-2021492  replied to  Enoch @1.1    5 years ago

I had to Google Dr. Swango.  Somehow, I had never heard of him.

I don't think Bach's intentions were murderous.  I think the praise she received on social media led her to believe she was more capable than she actually was.  But I do think that if she pulled such a stunt in the US, she would be found guilty of negligent homicide.

She had coworkers telling her that she was in over her head, but she chose to believe otherwise.

Her refusal to see that she was guilty of far worse than pride, and that she was causing harm to actual human children, does not speak in her favor.

 
 
 
Enoch
Masters Quiet
1.1.2  Enoch  replied to  sandy-2021492 @1.1.1    5 years ago

Dear Friend Sandy: Good point.

The result of Swango and Bach turneds out to be the same, although with dissimilar numbers; and very different intentions.

Let's call it an anology, not an equivalent.

Thanks for making the distinctions clear.

Good catch.

P&AB.

Enoch.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
1.1.3  seeder  sandy-2021492  replied to  Enoch @1.1.2    5 years ago
The result of Swango and Bach turneds out to be the same,

Unfortunately true.  I doubt that all of the deaths were the result of her substandard care, and perhaps most of them were not.  It would be difficult to determine at this point.  But it is clear that she engaged in dangerous practices with very little idea just how dangerous she was.  Unfortunately, a reckless person can cause just as much harm as a malicious one.

 
 
 
Freefaller
Professor Quiet
1.1.4  Freefaller  replied to  sandy-2021492 @1.1.1    5 years ago
I think the praise she received on social media led her to believe she was more capable than she actually was.

Very good point, doesn't excuse the behaviour but still a good point

 
 
 
Tacos!
Professor Guide
2  Tacos!    5 years ago

The local medical experts seem to want to claim that there were professional who should have been doing this work. But if that were true, it strikes me as odd that several charitable organizations should have so much work to do. 

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
2.1  seeder  sandy-2021492  replied to  Tacos! @2    5 years ago

Her charity should have hired licensed medical professionals from the moment she decided she was going to start providing medical care.  She did, eventually.  Why not before?

 
 
 
Tacos!
Professor Guide
2.1.1  Tacos!  replied to  sandy-2021492 @2.1    5 years ago

Maybe she didn't have the money before. Maybe she couldn't find anyone to do the work before. I get the impression that she would have preferred to have doctors doing the work, but money and/or doctors clearly don't grow on trees. Wishing will not make them appear out of nothing.

It's not as if she was refusing to let doctors help her.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
2.1.2  seeder  sandy-2021492  replied to  Tacos! @2.1.1    5 years ago

Then she shouldn't have been providing medical care.  What she did was illegal, and it was unethical.  It endangered lives.  If you're fighting malnutrition, then fight malnutrition with food and water, not illegal blood transfusions.

She wasn't even properly trained to feed severely malnourished and dehydrated children.  Get their electrolytes out of balance, and you stop their hearts.

Good intentions aren't enough.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
2.1.3  seeder  sandy-2021492  replied to  Tacos! @2.1.1    5 years ago
It's not as if she was refusing to let doctors help her.

Actually, the story varies on that.

As Bach garnered positive attention on social media, Laverty says, she began recruiting patients — going into the government-run children's hospital in Jinja and "looking for the most severely sickly, dying children she could find, and convincing their mothers to run away with them.” “She would meet them in the parking lot and take them to her center," Laverty says, adding she eventually quit volunteering and ended her friendship with Bach.
 
 
 
Tacos!
Professor Guide
2.1.4  Tacos!  replied to  sandy-2021492 @2.1.2    5 years ago
Then she shouldn't have been providing medical care.

That would be the preference, obviously. But if someone drops a sick kid on you and there is no other option, what are you supposed to do? Ignore it? Or do your best (even if your best isn't very qualified) to save the child?

I really don't get the impression that she was dong this for any purpose other than to help needy people.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
2.1.5  seeder  sandy-2021492  replied to  Tacos! @2.1.4    5 years ago

There were other options.  There were government clinics with professionals in her town.

And frankly, if she doesn't know what she's doing, her "best" might actually be causing harm.  Like the transfusion she gave baby Patricia.  If she isn't trained to recognize or treat transfusion reactions, then she shouldn't be giving transfusions.  Period. 

 
 
 
Tacos!
Professor Guide
2.1.6  Tacos!  replied to  sandy-2021492 @2.1.3    5 years ago

That's kind of a weird thing. What is going on at the hospital that some random woman could just cruise in and remove a deathly ill child who was actually being cared for? It seems like there must be more to that than we are hearing.

 
 
 
Tacos!
Professor Guide
2.1.7  Tacos!  replied to  sandy-2021492 @2.1.5    5 years ago
There were government clinics with professionals in her town.

I know they say that's the case, but if that's true, why would anyone come to her even once, much less 900 times?

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
2.1.8  seeder  sandy-2021492  replied to  Tacos! @2.1.6    5 years ago

Maybe there is.  And maybe even some Ugandans believed that, just because she was American, she would be able to provide better care than they were receiving in the hospital.  It does not seem that she disabused them of this notion.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
2.1.9  seeder  sandy-2021492  replied to  Tacos! @2.1.7    5 years ago

Her "clinic" seems to have grown from what was basically a food pantry.  Once they started going to her for food, and local hospitals asked her to start feeding patients who had been released, she seems to have expanded into medical care.  Did anybody other than fellow volunteers question her qualifications?  Would they have had the means to investigate?

 
 
 
Paula Bartholomew
Professor Participates
2.2  Paula Bartholomew  replied to  Tacos! @2    5 years ago

If these experts were so local, why didn't they step up and help?

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
2.2.1  seeder  sandy-2021492  replied to  Paula Bartholomew @2.2    5 years ago

There were hospitals and clinics in town.  There were professionals available.  Eventually, she even hired some. 

But until then, a home-schooled high school grad with only a CPR certification was making medical decisions about critically ill infants.

First, do no harm.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
3  seeder  sandy-2021492    5 years ago

Bach disputed Kramlich’s characterizations. “Patricia did go into anaphylactic shock, yes. That happens in Uganda. It’s not uncommon. People get HIV from blood transfusions,“ Bach said.

This statement makes me wonder if she knows the difference between HIV and anaphylactic shock.

 
 
 
Freefaller
Professor Quiet
3.1  Freefaller  replied to  sandy-2021492 @3    5 years ago

Read something about this person a month or so ago, she definitely exceeded her training/experience (or lack thereof) and what her common sense should have told her she could do

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
3.1.1  seeder  sandy-2021492  replied to  Freefaller @3.1    5 years ago

This article was the first I'd heard of it.  I get that she wanted to help, but her cavalier attitude toward taking on much more than her training allowed seems to have appalled even fellow volunteers, who were dealing with the same difficult conditions that she was.

 
 
 
Freefaller
Professor Quiet
3.1.2  Freefaller  replied to  sandy-2021492 @3.1.1    5 years ago
I get that she wanted to help,

Props to her for doing so

but her cavalier attitude toward taking on much more than her training allowed seems to have appalled even fellow volunteers

Can't explain that, other than to say young people can be rather self-absorbed (even charitable ones) and maybe she didn't see the big picture.

 
 

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