Special Interview Two Seattle Doctors Return from Gondar and Say Medical Care in Rural Areas is Almo

Two Seattle physicians, who have just returned from the Gondar region of Ethiopia, where they treated Jews and Christians in the mainly Falasha villages there, found that medical care is almost non-existent in the province’s rural area.

Drs. Joseph Schuster and Jonathan Ostrow, in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, said that starvation was not a problem in Gondar since the province was the wheat-growing area for the country, although a 30 to 35 percent drop in the crop this year could result in famine next spring unless there is an improvement in the wheat production.

“The issue here (in Gondar) is not starvation, it is just very primitive medical care in communities that have lost most of their healthy young men,” Ostrow said. He added that this was “more of a problem in the Jewish villages” since those young men who had not been drafted had fled the country, mainly to Israel.

Schuster said that all the Ethiopian Jews they met would like to go to Israel where one-third of the Falasha community now lives. He noted that the Ethiopian government, which maintains that it permits freedom of religion, has banned the teaching or use of Hebrew which it claims is being taught for “exodus to Israel.”

The two doctors, who had never been to Ethiopia before, went there under the auspices of the Surgical Aid for Children of the World (SACOW), a private New York-based medical relief agency. The trip was paid for by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC), the association of Reform congregations. They said they were the first American doctors allowed in Gondar since Americans were expelled from Ethiopia by the new Marxist government 10 years ago.

NATURE OF MEDICAL FACILITIES

The only hospital in Gondar is in the provincial capital, Gondar City, and is staffed by four Ethiopian doctors and about a dozen East German physicians, Schuster said. He stated that most of the Jewish villages are in a 40 to 50 mile radius around Gondar City. They were only able to get to the villages some 12 to 15 miles out. Some of distant villages in the Siman mountains near Tigray province, where a war of secession against Ethiopia is going one, have not been heard from in years.

There are 15 rural clinics in the province, including one at Ambober, which was an ORT facility until ORT was expelled in 1981, and three larger medical centers all of which are supposed to provide primary medical aid in the rural areas. But none have medical doctors and basically give nothing more than first aid, Schuster said. In addition, he pointed out the villagers who are mostly farmers cannot afford to pay for treatment, since charges run from 25 cents to $1.50 and they earn less than $50 a year. While free medical aid is available for the indigent, these farmers are not considered indigent since they own cows.

Ostrow said that in visiting the villages, they found that the people live in grass huts, sleep on the floors and go barefoot. There is no sanitation and the drinking water is from a river that is contaminated.

LARGE-SCALE ILLNESS

Schuster said when they came into a village, they sat on a rock outside and the residents came to them “in droves.” They found 40 percent had eye infections with three to five percent either blind or going blind.

There were a large number of ear infections. All the women had goiters. People suffered from leprosy, polio and tuberculosis. Virtually everyone had an open infested sore in which flies congregated and as soon as any one was scratched flies immediately covered it.

The two doctors in their visits to the villages, which were all Jewish or mainly Jewish, were able to treat everyone there. They hoped that SACOW will be allowed to establish a permanent American presence in Gondar which they also hope will be an American Jewish presence.

Their plans call for having a physician in Gondar at the hospital for six months at a time, with other physicians volunteering their services on a monthly basis. They would also like to have a vehicle to serve as a mobile medical unit to visit the various villages.

For their recent visit, the Canadian African Aid Society provided 1,500 pounds of medical supplies and medicine and a Canadian pharmaceutical firm has promised to donate medical supplies if SACOW is able to establish a permanent presence. But the doctors said they would have to raise funds to provide the expensive cost of flying American doctors to and from Ethiopia and to buy and maintain the medical vehicle.

The visit by the two doctors was timed to coincide with the Ethiopian Jewish ancient celebration of Seggid a day of fasting and of prayer, followed by rejoicing. They were joined by about 40 American and Canadian and Israeli Jews who were visiting the area at the same time.