Via the Peoria Journal Star, Dr. John Carroll makes a huge social problem very personal: No Urgency for the Poor. Click through for the full post and some of Dr. Carroll's powerful photographs. Excerpt:
How long should we let hundreds of thousands of Haitians live in horrid tents and shacks after the earthquake of 2010? They have been living in squalid conditions for three years now.
And how long should we let a two year old little boy named Elie live with a hole in his heart in one of these tents in Port-au-Prince? Until he dies? Yes, until he dies.
When I first examined Elie in February of 2012 he was a tiny irritable toddler who clung to his mother more fiercely than any baby I had ever checked. He refused my exam as much as he could. He did not want to be separated from his mom even by the diameter of my stethoscope head.
I feared for Elie from the start with the loud murmur in his chest and his "don't touch me" demeanor. He seemed so fragile and knowing which seemed like red flags for trouble.
