“Sylvie, does the old lady have a chance of making it?”
“No, none at all. You know, there’s a cynical saying that surgeon’s patients die cured. Obviously, nobody’s interested in dying cured, but dying treated is something else. Sometimes people die in our hands, during the operation, and there’s nothing we can do. But the family still thanks us. They thank us by saying: “He was sick, or he was wounded, and you treated him, you prepared him to meet Allah. Thank you.” For us, who couldn’t save him, that’s hardly a consolation. But to them it’s very important that he died treated. And you know, when you give a dead child back to its mother – that’s happened to me – and, in return, she slips a handkerchief with a few walnuts into your hand... and she says, “Thank you, thanks to you he is ready to meet Allah”…”
“Must be heartbreaking.”
“Sure is.”
The Photographer by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, Frédéric Lemercier, Médecins sans frontiers. Macmillan 2009.
“No, none at all. You know, there’s a cynical saying that surgeon’s patients die cured. Obviously, nobody’s interested in dying cured, but dying treated is something else. Sometimes people die in our hands, during the operation, and there’s nothing we can do. But the family still thanks us. They thank us by saying: “He was sick, or he was wounded, and you treated him, you prepared him to meet Allah. Thank you.” For us, who couldn’t save him, that’s hardly a consolation. But to them it’s very important that he died treated. And you know, when you give a dead child back to its mother – that’s happened to me – and, in return, she slips a handkerchief with a few walnuts into your hand... and she says, “Thank you, thanks to you he is ready to meet Allah”…”
“Must be heartbreaking.”
“Sure is.”
The Photographer by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, Frédéric Lemercier, Médecins sans frontiers. Macmillan 2009.
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