David Edem

When I got back to Accra David had a story for me.

Every day he had been walking down the same street passing a guy who was lying in the full sun, in a pile of rubbish, whose condition seemed to be getting progressively worse. In Accra lots of people are lying in the streets, half alive… or half dead should I say, so I am not sure why this guy in particular had captured his attention. On the Friday he finally walked up to the man to take a closer look. Apart from a slowly rising and falling chest every other part of him suggested he was already dead.

David asked the people around him for help, these are the same people that had set up there little food stands in that same spot, beside this half dead man every day. No one seemed to know how to help him. He suggested calling an ambulance and was laughed at, where we come from that’s all we ever need to do.

Not knowing what else to do he walked back to the hotel to ask the owner Edem for help. Edem agreed, and what’s more, he had a car, but when he saw the state of the man he refused to take him to hospital. He explained that the law was if the man had died in his car he would be the one held responsible for his death. So they walked to the police station.

“Is he dead?” the police woman asked.

“98% dead” replied David.

“Then I can’t help you” she told him “we can only help you if he is actually dead.” However she suggested he try another local police station.

“Is he dead?” The officer there asked

“98% dead”

“Then we can’t help you” the officer there said. “And even if we could we don’t have a car”.

So David paid for two police officers to get in a taxi and go with him and Edem to have a look at the man.

I guess that the officers knew that this man needed help, but what they knew more was that David was not going to give up… from what I know of David he never does.

They tried to wave down a taxi to take him to hospital but every driver refused, who can blame them with laws that actually discourage helping someone in need. Even with two police officers there they couldnt get a taxi. Finally Edem agreed to take him in his car, and David paid for the two cops to follow behind in a cab. They loaded the 30kg that was left of this guy into the back of the car and took him to the hospital.

At hospital David was told that they would admit him but that he would be fully responsible. He would have to pay for the bed including extra for sheets, he would also have to pay all medical expenses, from nappies to water to testing and drugs. They took him outside and hosed him down.

On the hospital registration form beside ‘name’ they filled in both David and Edem’s name, so this 98% dead man became known as David Edem.

It was on the Sunday when I got back that David told me this story. He asked if I would go to the hospital with him the next day.

The hospital was quite small, women and children were crowding the waiting room furnished with plastic picnic chairs. From the waiting room we walked down a corridor with open glass windows looking into all the rooms. I knew straight away who David Edem was.

Looking at him I felt quite ill. We pulled back his bed sheet, he looked like he’d stepped out of Auschwitz. All skin and bone, one of my hands could have wrapped around his thigh. His stomach between the bottom rib and pelvis was flat against the mattress. He had chunks of missing flesh from his knees, feet, wrists, knuckles and cheek bone, now pooling with yellow puss.

At first he lay as calm as the dead. But then suddenly, like a scene from The Exorcist his eyes shot open and violently his body spasmed and contorted. His hands and feet were chained to the bed but he convulsed so violently I thought it might tip up. His eyes were red and murky and didn’t focus on anything. He was muttering, but it didn’t sound like words just noises. At one point I am sure we locked eyes and that his focused for a few seconds, I was a little afraid, he looked possessed by an evil spirit. I was also reminded of the Brad Pitt film Seven, when the man who had starved to death and eaten his own tongue violently shot to life causing the whole audience to shriek.

David and I sat on the plastic chairs in the hallway just outside his room and sat staring at dried blood smears that streaked the wall. We asked each other what the chances are of someone in that condition actually surviving. Even if he did live and start to get better what would happen then? Were there any social services that help with rehabilitation? He wouldn’t have money, does he have any family? Even if he did would they be in a position to take care of him? We wondered aloud about the life of David Edem. Where did he come from? How did he get like this? Was he a drug addict or did he have a mental illness? Was he someone’s father or someone’s lover? Who was missing him?

The doctor finally came round to see him with a group of nurses in tow. None of them wanted to touch him and the doctor kept his distance. The doctor hadn’t seen him yet, it was Monday and no doctor had been working on the weekend.

“Can I ask you a question?” David asked the doctor.

“What are the chances of him living?”

“It is not up to me” the doctor replied “It is in God’s hands”

“Ok…” David replied trying a different approach. “…But have you ever seen anyone in this condition recover before, and do you think he has a chance?”

“Only God knows if he will live… it is up to God” he answered.

We both asked a series of questions and the doctor seemed to be getting annoyed. Not as annoyed as we were getting though, by the replies of “only God knows”.

They hadn’t done any tests on him yet; they were as surprised as us that he had lived this long and so until now they had not done anything for him except a saline drip. One of the nurses was told to take his blood later and they would begin testing, it had only taken three days for them to do something!

I felt sorry for the five other patients sharing a room with him, all day they would lie beside him looking into the face of death.

The doctor wrote out a list of what was needed, including more diapers, saline, water and antibiotics. David would have to buy them from the hospital chemist. He went up to the little glass window and gave the woman the doctor’s list.

“Now will you be giving the anal suppository?” She asked him.

“Over my dead body” he replied.

We both burst into giggles but she didn’t find it so funny.

The hospital supplies had run out and we were sent to a chemist a few blocks away. On the way back to the hospital we passed a man curled up in the foetal position in the middle of the footpath in the burning sun clutching his stomach. Again this sight is nothing new here but with David Edem chained to a hospital bed just around the corner it hit a little close to home. We bought a box of rice and a bag of water to give him. By this time he had rolled over, his face was pressed against a brick wall and his bare arse was exposed through a huge rip in his pants. I hesitated.

“You bought it so you can give it to him, but if you need me to do it I will” David said.

I handed to him, I couldn’t do it and I don’t know why I became so averse to approaching him.

David gave him the food and the man shot up and started devouring it.

So for that day his belly would have been full enough and he may have lived another day, but what will happen the next day, and the day after that?

There are homeless and hungry people in Australia too, but there are systems in place to feed and house these people. There are no similar systems in Ghana. In fact it seems there are systems in place to deter people from helping. Which made me start to think maybe it was better for David Edem to die rather than find himself back on the streets and starving again. The whole experience made me think about the value of human life, as well as notions of responsibility, I haven't found any answers yet.