It is with heavy heart I write my blog today. Our dear Ora, one of my colleagues at SHIFSD, died last night from meningitis. It is such a waste, the worst part being that she would have lived to see her family again back in Liberia if only the church and her husband had been more reasonable. When she first fell ill they took her to the camp clinic, and at that time she had suffered from blackouts and she was catatonic and aggressive at the same time. Due to this the clinic overlooked her physical symptoms such as high fever and cramps (!!!) and said that she was suffering from some kind of depression or mental illness. This of course made the church and her husband to believe that a demon had possessed her and therefore they took her from the clinic and strapped her to a bed in the basement of the church, denying anyone to see and treating her with prayers and other religious and spiritual rituals. Charlotte and Diane succeeded however to persuade the church to let them see Ora and they could again see that she was seriously ill with high fever and cramps but Ora’s husband, who by the way was and is in Liberia, refused to let them take Ora to a hospital in Accra. Not before 5 days had passed Ora was taken to a hospital in Accra and there the doctors could immediately tell she was suffering from meningitis and started to treat her for it, unfortunately it was too late. Ora have left us all in deep sorrow, especially as she died for no reason at all. I am still not sure what will happen next, but I can tell you this much – we would do a lot in order to see both her husband and the church persecuted for causing her death. The question is how the police and the judicial system in Ghana would respond to such a persecution. I am not sure they would care at all…
I miss you all very much and I think of you especially in a moment like this. I hope you are all safe and sound where ever you are, and in case I have not told you lately – I love you!
Yours,
T
Hei…
For en grusom opplevelse. meningitt.. Er det hjernehinnebetennelse det? Håper du får det bedre snart! KLEM
Huff, det var en utrolig trist historie. Det er forferdelig at slike ting kan skje, og at folk ikke har kunnskap nok til å forstå hva som er galt. I mitt vestlige sinn blir jeg også ekstremt provosert av å høre om en kirke og ektemann som gir demoner skylden for oppførselen hennes og derav behandler henne på en forferdelig måte. Jeg føler med dere, og håper det går bra med deg. Klem, Marte