La Vie là c’est quoi même

Yaoundé, Cameroon. In the hospital’s paediatrics service, Doctor Wamba tirelessly repeats the same advice to mothers. In the premature babies’ ward, Samira is finally able to breastfeed her infant after its two months in the incubator. In neonatology, twins have just arrived. Born in a taxi, one now needs a blood transfusion but the parents are nowhere in sight. Before any treatment is given, you must pay up. Here, there is no social security and health care is not a basic right. How can you treat people when resources are lacking, or save children’s lives when there is no money? Nurses and doctors struggle on. Day after night, in the corridors of the paediatric wards, the same problems crop up. Yet, there are also moments of shared joy when a child gets better. Tension is there, sometimes a burst of anger but, more often than not, there is a smile of appeasement.