120,000 People, One Doctor.(Democratic Republic of the Congo)(Brief Article)

It started with a slight swelling in the eye. A doctor gave 3-year-old Juma Hangi some drops, but his condition worsened. The doctor then prescribed an antibiotic, and then another. As Juma's father sank into debt to pay for the drugs, the doctor administered a third antibiotic. It had no effect. By then, a large abscess had formed in the boy's mouth, making it difficult for him to breathe and impossible to swallow. Twelve days into his illness, the boy lay barely conscious on a dirty mattress in the main hospital in Goma, eastern Congo, his face grotesquely swollen, his eyeballs rolling back, blood seeping from his mouth. And still nobody knew what was wrong with him.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a nation the size of France, the hospital in Goma is a beacon of medical excellence. Unlike most other Congo hospitals, it has an X-ray machine, anesthesia for surgery and drugs that haven't yet expired. And yet Goma is chronically understaffed. Its one qualified pediatrician had not been there for six days. Even though Juma's nurse, Alphonse Ndagije, had had to cut his training short "due to a lack of money," he had no trouble getting a job there anyway. (His salary consists of ...