Freud said that depression is anger turned inward. I think this is astute. I also think that when anger and depression become so internalized that they define a practice, violence is born. It is hard for me to just say that there is some serious neglect and malpractice happening in this hospital. I have spent the last month kind of dabbling around the issue, intervening at moments and keeping quiet at others. It is hard for me, as a westerner who is concerned with issues of hegemony and cultural representation to say that the care is truly sub-par, and lack of funds and supplies are not the main issue. I have to check myself and the academic bullshit. It is wrong for women to be left bleeding on cold metal tables for hours on end while their babies die and the midwives sleep. It is wrong for women to be hit and screamed at while pushing a baby out. It is wrong for the bulb syringe and the fetuscope to be taken off the busy labor ward and not returned for days while babies suffer with ingested mucus and low heart rates. It is wrong to discharge young mothers with no resources who are clearly showing signs of depression and whose babies are not yet breastfeeding. It is wrong to leave women laying for hours in puddles of their own blood and feces. It is wrong to drink alcohol while on shift. It is wrong. It is bad medicine and it is violence against women. Only the poorest women come to this hospital because it is free. This is a human rights issue. This is so deeply layered there is nowhere to point a finger. Apathy is easier.

The issues are multi- layered, as most issues are. They may start with the administration or maybe with the war, or perhaps poor training, exhaustion, anger or maybe it is tribal hatred as one young mother suggested to me. As an outsider I may never know but I also feel that these issues need to be exposed so that they can evolve, take new form.

I am too tired to describe the events of yesterday, but they were traumatic. I have not yet processed for myself. Dead babies due to neglect, administrative lies to cover up malpractice, and very sick women still left unattended and laying in their own urine. For a moment I considered just walking away. Not my problem. But I slept last night and awoke this morning feeling like that is exactly the issue. It is too easy to walk away and allow practices to continue. It is too easy to say this is not my problem. But it is. It is all of our problem. As women. As mothers. As sisters. As men. As humans in the world.
I am not sure of the next step, only that I have been here as witness, and now I need to share.