インドは海外からの援助を辞退。
国境なき医師団「お金はもう結構です」。
昔、『プロジェクトX』の第113回「チェルノブイリの傷 奇跡のメス」(2003年5月13日放送分)を観て、友人(青年海外協力隊の同期。パキスタンで看護師として活動した)に、
「医師とか看護師って、自分のすることが直接他人の役に立つからうらやましい」
というような意味のことを言った覚えがある。
じゃあ、自分も医者とか看護師とか目指せばいいじゃん、と思ったこともあるが、やっぱり無理だ。私の場合、生かす人より殺す人の方が多くなる。
人の命が関わる職業で(特に医療の現場で)当たり前のことをきちんとできる、というのは、れっきとした1つの才能だと思う。
実は私は「大型特殊免許」(*1)と、「あなたは工事現場でこれこれのタイプの建設機械を操作して作業できますよ」という認定証(*2)を持っており、青年海外協力隊を受験する際、「建設機械の保守・操作」という職種(現地の職業訓練校などでその技術を指導するのが仕事)を受けようかとも思ったのだが、これも危なくすれば人の命が関わるのでやめておいた。
それによく読んだら「実務経験5年以上」とあった。私、ペーパードライバー(?)なので。
バングラデシュにも看護師隊員はいて(*3)、時々話を聞いたことがあるが、やっぱり日本だったら助かるはずの人がどんどん亡くなってしまうという、もともと日本で医療の現場にいてそういう面で精神的にものすごくタフなはずの彼女たちにとってもかなりつらい現状がそこにはある。
私が活動していた職場の近くにフィンランドのNGOが運営している孤児院(正確には貧しい家庭の子供を預かる寄宿舎学校。男子と女子に分かれている)があった。当時、赴任してきたばかりの理事長夫妻の奥さん(女子の部の校長)が、子供の頃トータルで7年くらい日本で暮らしていた関係もあって、何度か遊びに行ったことがある。
ある時、年が明けたばかりの頃、彼女が泣きそうな顔で沈んでいたので、話を聞いてみたら、
「クリスマス休暇中に家に帰した女の子が死んでしまった」
と言う。
「腎臓病だった。食事にさえ気をつけていれば問題はなかったけど、家の人がそれを理解してなかった。ここにいれば彼女が死ぬことはなかったのに・・・・・・」
「車でダッカの病院に運ぶ途中、船の上で死んだの。私の腕の中で息を引き取ったのよ」
もともと神経の細い人ではあったが、その経験は私の想像を絶する。
自分の腕の中で、生きている人が死んでいく、ということがどういうことなのか私には想像できない。
彼女のことでもう一つ思い出したことがある。
私と同じ任地で活動していた家政隊員(別の公立の施設で女性に刺繍を教えていた)が帰国する際に、自分の活動で余った物資をそのNGOに寄付することを申し出た。その時彼女が言ったこと。
「ありがとう。でも要りません。最近、私はここにいる子供たちが恵まれすぎているのではないかという気がしてしょうがないの。彼らは、自分たちがこの施設の外にいる他の人たちに比べてとても恵まれていることにどんどん無頓着になって、与えられることが当然だと思っている」
***
*1
ホイール型の建設機械を公道で運転できる。これに対し、いわゆる「キャタピラー型」は道を傷めるので公道で運転することができない。ちなみに「キャタピラー」はあくまで製品名(というか会社名?)で正式名称ではない。正式名称は忘れた。
*2
こっちは国がいくつかの民間企業に許認可を委託している。少なくとも「いた」。もう7年くらい前の話なので・・・・・・。確か有効期限はなかったように記憶しているが、旧姓のままなので今でも使えるのかどうか。それ以前にどこにしまったんだっけ?
*3
ちなみに青年海外協力隊には「医師」という職種はなかったし、今でもないと思う。
The government of India has been refusing international support from foreign nations.
"Stop sending us money" says an aid group "Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders)"
After I saw a TV program "Project X" on 5/13/2003, which program was the 113th "The wound after Chernobyl (the miracle surgical knife)" introducing a Japanese surgeon Akira Sugenoya. I said to a firend who was sent to Pakistan as a nurse of JOCV after a 3 month training at the same place at the same time of mine.
"I think what you did was better than mine because such people like a doctor or nurse can help other people practically."
So should I make efforts to be a doctor or a nurse? I think I mustn't. Because I am to kill more patients than to help some of them.
Doing all the ordinary things right is a talent when you are on such a duty as you may harm or kill someone else if you fail.
I have a few kinds of license including a license for driving a construction equipment on a public road (*1), with which licenses I can work in a construction site (*2)......if they let me do.
Before I applied for JOCV, I once thought if I would apply for "Maintenance and operation of construction equipments" of it, which occupation supposed me to teach students or teachers the skills about it at school or training center.
But I applied for another one fainally because "Maintenance and operation of construction equipments" may harm someone if I fail.
Anyway, they wouldn't have passed my application because they required the experience of more than 5 years on the job. I never worked in any construction site.
I sometimes talked with some nurses of JOCV in Bangladesh (*3). They had a hard time every time they saw a patient who they could have saved in Japan died though they had seen dying people in Japan.
There were boarding schools for children from poor families near from my office in Bangladesh, which schools a Finish NGO managed for decades. I sometimes went there to talk with a woman who had just moved into it with her family for woking as the director of girls' school of it and whose husband is the director of its whole institute in Bangladesh. She had stayed in Japan totally for 7 years in her childhood.
One day just after new year holidays, she looked so sad. She was about to cry all the time.
"A girl died a few days ago", said she.
"She had a kidney trouble but she wouldn't have died if was on a diet. She wouldn't have died if she stayed here. She had been staying at her home during the Christmas vacation. Her family didn't understand it."
"We took her to a certain hospital in Dhaka by car. We were in a hurry but she died on a ferry. She passed away in my arms."
I can't even imagin a person is dying to death in my own arms.
It was beyond my imagination. How hard it was to her? I sometimes thought she might be more sensitive than me.
I have just remembered one more thing about her.
When another JOCV member who had been teaching women embroidery at another public institute in the same city which I assigned to was about to finish her term of JOCV service, she proposed to give girls' school of the Finish NGO such materials for handiwork as cloths all of which she had for using them at her class. But the Finish woman refuged it.
"Thank you, but we don't need them. I'm afraid the girls here are given too much. Now, much more of them feel nothing about all the things they are given than ever. They don't recognize how much more they have here than other people outside."
***
*1
You can drive a construction equipment which moves with wheels, not one which moves with "CATERPPILLER"s because they harm a road too much. By the way, "CATERPPILLER" is not the name of the part, but the name of a product (or a company). I can't remember what I really should call the part, anyway.
*2
Actually, if you want to operate a construction equipment on the job, you need another license for it. There are some types of license which depends on the type of the machine, the size of it and load quantity which it can handle. The nation of Japan entrusts some private enterprises giving such licenses to applicants. At least, they entrusted them it about 7 years ago. I think these licenses had no expiration date but I don't know I can still use mine all of which have my maiden name. And above all, I can't remember where they are.
*3
JOCV had and maybe still has no occupation of doctor.