Sometimes.
She made a wound sequestration area out of palm fronds and coconut husk. She made an inhaler out of a plastic soda bottle. She prescribed drugs in all sorts of ways the FDA never allowed themselves to imagine.
It had been week two before someone came in with a broken bone, odd because fractures were so common, there and everywhere, and at first Rosie had been relieved. The woman was very pregnant and in a wheelbarrow, both she and her husband, who was pushing, flushed and out of breath, and Rosie had at first thought it would be something much worse. Whereas labor and delivery had tended, in her previous medical experience, to be the most triumphant rotation, here most people gave birth at home, and only came in when there was a complication, often only after it was too late or became too late during the journey. Rosie came to greet the sight of mounded belly with sinking dread. This patient grasped her domed front, shook her head, and assured K, who assured Rosie, “Baby stay. Ankle go.” It was then Rosie noticed her propped leg, purple and blue, her ankle swollen to the size of her thigh. “Fall off water buffalo,” K explained. “Hard to balance with such big…” The woman grinned then grimaced then grasped her belly again.
Rosie checked her pupils and her pulses, listened to her heart and the baby’s, had the woman endeavor to wiggle toes on both feet. “Let’s get you up to X-ray.” It was out of her mouth before she realized that at least the “up” was entirely erroneous. The X-ray too? Surely they had some kind of antiquated-but-better-than-nothing X-ray machine. How could they run the place without one? That said, she’d been there every day for two weeks and never seen one, heard one mentioned, located a building where one might have been. Maybe it had just never come up.
“K? I’m afraid to ask but … X-ray?”