It has just returned from Kenya doctor Antonio Melottohas operated again in the slums of Nairobi children with paralysis and limb problemshands and legs, as he has been doing since 1994. After spending the summer with some American surgeon friends, he is ready to return to Africa, to the first aid center Neema Hospital of the Onlus World Friends.
“Crooked feet, blocked arms, early childhood disabilities that can exclude many children from education and work – says the orthopedic surgeon -. We also see many burn victims, malnourished, children with even serious trauma. Undoubtedly in the last thirty years a certain segment of the local middle class has emerged from total poverty. But in Kenya land pockets of extreme poverty are still overflowingthe shanty towns outside the metropolis extend endlessly as far as the eye can see. People who are excluded from society live there, where there is no school, no employment, only crime dominates these spaces. Out of about five million people at least three live in these places, without water, electricity, sewer. You have to see to understand». In the book “Sick of Poverty” the doctor tries to give a complicated description of what goes on around Neema Hospital. «The last flood took away dozens of shacks with children, women and elderly people inside – says Melotto –, it was a recent tragedy, the authorities counted 250 deaths, but I can assure you that the toll was much more tragic. There is no registry office down there that can punctually make a precise calculation».
Hunger and poverty, wars and famines have pushed many Africans to flee, facing journeys of hope which sometimes pass right through our border. Between Como and Chiasso.
«And in fact when I returned home I visited these migrants at Red Cross of Lipomo – explains the doctor from Como –. For months, rescuers have set up a first reception center. Almost only young people, boys, arrive. Now there are about seventy people, recently almost all from Bangladesh, except for an Iranian woman with five small children. At this stage there are few sub-Saharans, but it depends on the waves. Those arriving from central Africa unfortunately have first of all serious psychological wounds. These are people who have suffered unimaginable things.often from their North African brothers, who are always very racist towards South Africans. The marks of trauma and beatings remain on their skin, but also the stains and burns from the sun, the salt of the sea, petrol and diesel fuel. Scars that form during the crossings, adventures with uncertain destinations and too many dangerous unknowns. During these journeys, as if they were compasses, these migrants all have a mobile phone in their hand. “And why, who here doesn’t have a mobile phone in their hand?” replies the specialist. “It’s their only link to home, to the past and to their loved ones. I just met a Bangladeshi boy who left his three children and his wife behind. He lived as a slave in Dubai for three years, then he managed to free himself and escaped here, almost by chance, to a distant land where he doesn’t even speak a word of our vocabulary. He has a mobile phone, yes, without it he wouldn’t be able to speak or see the one he loves.”
In Lipomo a group of volunteers is organizing, not by chance, some Italian coursessometimes women and young foreigners who are completely illiterate take part. «When I go home, patients and colleagues ask me to stay – says Melotto –, to don’t leave anymore and give a hand to the people here. Because in our country the waiting lists are getting longer, the emergency rooms are increasingly overcrowded, the health system is in crisis, there are few doctors and you have to pay for the tests. And so after many years in the hospital, having reached retirement, together with a group of doctors from Brianza I entered the Community of Health. It is and’ association of specialists that offers to those in need free consultationswith a self-help group.”
