Socialized Medicine-Street Style

Years ago it was almost impossible for a child living in the streets to get any  kind of medical attention for an illness or injury. If Archway came across such a child we could take them to the hospital where they could be treated – if we paid. We have memories of taking a young man to a hospital and having him turned away because he was too dirty  to be treated. At the time things like soap, sheets and blankets, food, and certainly medicine were not available to your average street kid.

Things have gotten a little better for our kids in that they can access a walk-in clinic or an emergency room where they can be seen by a doctor or nurse who will prescribe for them and send them out with a prescription for medication. The tragic irony of that system is that the prescriptions with which they are released are too expensive for a street child or family to afford. If they don’t reach out to us they cannot get the treatment they need to recover or heal. We were recently approached by a woman (with three small children) who was nine months pregnant and expecting any day. She approached us to borrow twenty-dollars so that she could have an ultrasound before she gave birth! We, of course, gave her the money and it was during the appointment for the ultrasound that she gave birth – to a healthy baby girl.

We saw her a few days later when she came to us to return the money. We told her to keep the money and use it for Pampers and  formula. She was very grateful. The recent pandemic that set the World back financially and socially for years took it’s toll on the street children who live together in small groups for survival. There are no statistics as regards the number of victims of the pandemic but one can estimate that the number of street children and homeless is and was high. Any medicine in great demand (as the Covid-19 vaccine was) goes to the highest bidder or is sold on the black market by those who have access to  the supplies. Like so many of the other things that should be available to the street kids but are not, medicine is one of the most important. 

The more common meds such as penicillin are out of the reach of the kids living in the street and we wonder about those more chronically ill. What about the child born with diabetes or infected with HIV? How about the child afflicted with cerebral palsy? Were it not for the daily outreach of Archway, Romania and its commitment to improving the quality of life of our street children, no one would know about the every day battles faced by the kids and the ways in which we are trying to help them win those battles. We’ve been in the streets with them and this is where we’re going to stay until we can show them that there is a better way of living and that it is attainable to even the youngest and poorest of them.