Rabies and the miracle of ‘Starfish’ palliative care

I was back in Manila, headed towards San Lazaro hospital, a veritable mecca for Infectious Diseases in the Philippines.

 

Stepping down onto the platform of the LRT (Light Rail Transit) into a throng of people, the thick humid air  descended on me immediately.  The steam bath was oppressive.  I pushed through the crowds, cringing as the train screeched away.

 

I worked my way through the turnstiles, passing a gaggle of beggars dressed in rags with dirty, tousseled hair.  Mostly young children, four, five years old.  What a future…  Motorcycles sputtered by like annoying kazoos.  Sometimes 4 or more people were seen variously packed onto these bikes.  How they ever didn’t fall off, I wasn’t sure.

 

Hulking shiny metal jeepneys, brightly hand painted, revved up and down the roads.  Filthy soot belching from their exhaust pipes.  Most of the female passengers held handkerchiefs to their faces to limit the particulate inhalations.  Ten, twenty, maybe even more passengers were crammed into the back.  Hundreds of children in school uniforms, everywhere, walking linked together at the arm.

 

I looked up at crowded houses and shops, laundry-lines criss-crossing the skies.  Webs of hundreds of wires interconnecting everything – it was an electricians worst nightmare.

 

This was my new home for the next month, and I just loved it.  Despite the outward appearances of an over urbanized mega-metropolis, the human heartbeat of Manila was palpable all around….