1. Every now and then, every night 1, 2 3 babies would die, often from Tetanus. Because they were born at home, families used knife to cut umbilical cord which was not sanitized
2. The parents were the primary care of the children because there were so few nurses and the hospitals were full. It was often the fathers rather than the mothers who stayed during the day as well as the night at the pediatric ward, as moms were taking care of siblings and cooking, as patients provided their own food.
3. Pediatric wards at a Hmong refugee camp hospital where families stayed the night with their children.
4. Families sleeping in the ward with sick children.
5. At night the adult and children’s wards were full, with patients sharing their hard wooden bed with family members, some of whom slept on the floor or under the bed.
6. PHOTOS:
Patients with IVs.
Children getting treatment for infections with scabies.
7. health problems that are caused by lack of water, and water that is not clean, pollution, mosquitos from stagnant water etc
8. Girl without shirt photo has skin abscesses from lack of clean water for bathing
9. Girl in middle photo has conjunctivitis which thrives when there is lack of clean water and soap
10. Children play next to the pond after rain, and lack of good drainage leaves a good breeding source for mosquitos.
11. Hmong refugees started selling Western medicines of all kinds, pills and capsules. Hmong would buy the different medicines and eat when they were sick, not knowing what they’ll treat, which also created health problems in the medical clinics and hospitals because they were taking the wrong drug for their disease.
12. Hmong have used plants as medicines (tshuaj ntsuab) for centuries. They sell herbs they’ve grown and dried. Some are for various diseases, and some are love potions.
13. Inside hospitals were rows of hard wooden pallets with wicker mats for patients.
14. “If we were sick then we went to buy medicine at the market and there were also free hospitals that helped children so we took the children to hospitals to get medicine”
15. Hmong refugees went to the hospital when they were very ill only, after their sickness wasn’t cured by doing shaman and taking herbal medicines.