Firewood Fuels Malians Health Care Costs

26 March 2010

In the West African nation of Mali, villagers are cutting firewood to pay their medical bills. But in an ironic twist that is making their environment more unhealthy.

In the village of Kabe, about 50 kilometers from Mali's capital, Bamako, a community health worker looks over Aseitu Sacko. She looks in her eyes and palpates her stomach. The clinic is just a small room with a bed and boxes of medicine stacked in the corner.

Sacko brings her toddler over. The health worker asks whether he has ever seen a doctor. Sacko says no. The boy has kwashiorkor, which means he does not get enough protein in his diet. The doctor bill is almost $14, while most Malians live on a little over $1.00 a day.

Sacko more often visits a traditional healer who costs a fraction of the price and prescribes herbs.

Walking back home, Sacko says she does not have money to buy good food for herself or her son, so she certainly can not afford to go to the Western-style clinic.

In the neighboring village of Sikoro, Mam Samake also avoids the doctor. Samake says when her family gets sick, they do not get any medicine because they do not have any money. She says they just go out and farm like usual. But one day Samake got so sick with malaria she had to go to a clinic.

She says because she did not have any money to pay the doctor, she walked around her village, going house to house asking other people to lend her money. Eventually she got what she needed. Then, Samake says, she had to cut firewood and sell it to pay back the money she borrowed.