Medecins Sans Frontieres Doctors Without

Medecins Sans Frontieres

Doctors Without Borders

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MSF Proposal for Potential Action in China:

On a recent trip to Shanghai, China I had the experience of working as a volunteer interpreter for American families who where in China to adopt children from China. During this experience I was given the opportunity to spend time in an orphanage in China. I felt blessed that I was able to work in this capacity to assist these very young children and their prospective adopted families to help these children in being received into loving homes, that would offer them more opportunity to succeed than they would be given in their home country, without loving families to care for them.

The lingering effects of this volunteer work have not left me but during my visits to the orphanage I was able to visit a rarely visited ward of the orphanage which housed children who were considered unsuitable for adoption. The children were considered unsuitable for adoption, by either local families or foreigners and where therefore offered little in the way of intervention. The determination for being unsuitable was frequently due to mild, moderate or even severe physical and/or mental disability. The general policy of this orphanage, and possibly many others in China is to not allow adoptions of children with diminished capacities, even though there are likely many families who would be willing to adopt such children if full disclosure was evident and if they were allowed to do so.

These children where housed in an environment with minimal care and very limited emotional and physical stimulation. Resources for children with disabilities was very limited, though the staff did what they could to make sure they were clean and fed limited staffing and resources was evident from their general disposition and living environment. The children were demonstrative of children who are under stimulated and neglected by virtue of their condition and were also offered little in the way of resources to treat or even support their conditions.

Many of these individual children, I assume would have much greater overall health and abilities if they were offered more care and if early screening had been done to determine the nature of their disability and the manners in which these children could be medically treated to overcome at least some of the struggles that they were born with. The children were basically, warehoused until they were to medically fragile to be cared for at the orphanage, or until their death from natural causes. They were offered no "better place" as the other children in the orphanage were. They were simply deemed unwanted and therefore housed, rather than treated for their varied conditions.

Medical intervention would likely greatly improve the chances that these children could be reevaluated to be considered, viable for adoption, at the very least by local residents with the love and resources to assist them in their struggles. Though I have a very limited medical background it is my opinion that such medical intervention would greatly benefit the initial classification as well as the treatment of such children, with stimulating activities and possibly education, where applicable so they might be deemed suitable for adoption, once again or for the first time. Those with physical disabilities could be assisted to find appropriate medical devices for the purpose of autonomy and independence. Those with mental disabilities could be evaluated to determine the causal factors of their disabilities and assess the viability of cognitive or medical treatment to facilitate change in their lives and potential improved capabilities, so they again would be offered a better life.

It is my untrained opinion that many of these children were classified as unsuitable for adoption, and possibly abandoned by families due to relatively minor, and treatable malformations, that signaled to doctors and/or caregivers that they "could" have other more pressing medical conditions or problems unseen that would render them incapable in the future, and that the depravity of care, exacerbated their conditions. The looks in the eyes of some of these children, ranging from blank stares to pleading for attention left an impression upon me that is still present today, more than a year after meeting them. They were basically kept clean and fed, and not much else, as staffing was so short that no additional staff was offered them, even though they were clearly in need of some of the simplest interventions, such as love, attention and physical affection. They were isolated from the general population and had little recourse to make an impression on anyone, other than each other. I also believe that those from the general population, who had been starved of opportunity for affection and attention were also placed here, as a result of the affect of such under stimulation.

It is my understanding that MSF has taken actions in the past to assist unwanted children in China, through intervention and then the development of an NGO to assist them in housing and adoption placement, when they had previously been abandoned street children. In your China information, there is a brief explanation of the care MSF provided for these previously unwanted children.

I believe such an intervention could be beneficial in this case as well. Even two more adult caregivers a day and weekly assessments, by medical professionals could appropriately aide these children in their ability to recover from under stimulation affect and possibly to allow them to be more accurately assessed and cared for in a manner that is befitting their varied conditions. Medical intervention to treat more minor designations could also allow these children to be returned to the general population of the orphanage, and possibly be more appropriately cared for and have a lesser chance of living their entire lives in institutional care.