Dree stepped back. She was glad that Maxence hadn’t been the one to start this argument with Alfonso. There seemed to be somethingelsegoing on behind their debates.
Alfonso shook his hand, gesturing at the marks on the rocks. “How do you even know that those are flood marks? You can’t correlate the age of the houses with that. There was a major earthquake in Nepal in 2015. Whole villages were leveled. That watermark, if it is a watermark, might have nothing to do with the fact that this village has a bunch of new houses. It might have been fifty years ago. It might not evenbea water mark.”
Isaak’s voice rose. “We can’t install a basic septic system in this location because of the shale. There isn’t enough direct sunlight in this valley formonthsout of the year to run solar panels here, or in any of these villages due to those damn mountains.Nepalisn’t the right country for your NICU micro-clinic project, Alfonso.It’s not going to work.”
Dree caught Maxence’s eye. He was watching the argument closely but didn’t look like he wanted to jump in.
She sure as blazes didn’t.
Alfonso said, “We canmakeit work. We’vemadeother projects work.”
Isaak rolled his eyes. “We’ve thrown money at other projects that never panned out. That doesn’t mean the problems were solved. Throwing money at problems doesn’t make them go away. It just makes the people keep coming back for more, and then other, more successful projects don’t receive adequate funding. Back me up here, Maxence.”
Alfonso raised his hand toward Maxence in a typical stay-out-of-this gesture as he said to Isaak, “But this is a problem weknowexists. Premature babies in these rural villages stand an eighty percent chance of dying. If we savedhalfof them, it would be an enormous step. Back me up on this, Andrea Catherine.”
Oh, crap.Dree said, “I’m not here for the technical specifications. I’m just here to be medical personnel feedback.”
Beyond where Isaak and Alphonso were arguing, Dree saw Batsa elbow Father Booker. “Looks like nobody is asking our opinions about this.”
Father Booker shook his head. “Enjoy it while it lasts.”
Isaak told Alfonso, “The incubators have too many technical challenges. No one here will be able to run them. They will break, and no one will be able to fix them. Max, tell them I’m right.”
Maxence stepped forward.
Dragging him backward probably wouldn’t keep him out of the argument, so she didn’t.
Max said, “I know you planned to involve the locals in the construction of the micro-clinics, Alfonso, and that is the best practice. However, that just means they’re going to be able to fix the walls and roof. They aren’t solar power technicians for when the panels go down. One good hailstorm can destroy an array.”
Isaak nodded so hard that his blond hair flopped around his head.
Max continued, “And you don’t just stuff a premature baby in an incubator like a Christmas fish into an oven for them to finish baking. Premature infants often need complex medical procedures to keep them alive and not cause further damage. Many of them must be intubated or need IV lines run. There are no doctors here. There are no nurses or nurse practitioners or otherbasicmedical professionals, let alone NICU specialists, as Dree can tell you.”
He gestured toward her, and she slouched.
The men were just determined to drag her into their catfight.
Dree sighed and said, “The people here need basic medical care. They will not be able to operate neonatal incubators.”
“We’re designing the incubators to be simple. They’re essentially a turnkey operation. Take the preemie, walk into the micro-clinic, place the preemie in the incubator, and enter weight and vitals. The computer will calculate the oxygen saturation, temperature, and so on, and then the baby can be treated properly.”
Dree’s nursing bullshit detector was clanging with all its bells and whistles. There was something verywrongwith Alfonso’s plan.
She asked with a low voice, “Who’s going to take the baby’s vitals, Alfonso, and where are the tanks of oxygen going to come from?”
“Fine,”Alfonso said. “So, when there’s a premature baby born, they can call down to the Chandannath city, and the medical center there can send a doctor to take the vitals and treat the baby in the micro-clinic.”
Isaak flung his hand at the sky. “We’ve been riding these roads for weeks on motorcycles. Have youseenany phone lines out here?”
“Fine, they’ll use their mobile phones,” Alfonso grumbled.
Dree recognized a classic let-them-eat-cake line and flinched.
Maxence asked him, “Have you seen any mobile phones out here? Or cellular towers? I haven’t seen any cell-phone towers sticking up off the cliff faces of the Himalayan mountains.”
Alfonso said, “Then we’ll put satellite phones in the micro-clinics. When they have a premature baby being born, they can call down to the Chandannath city, and the medical clinic can helicopter a doctor up to them.”
Dree was getting tired of all the fruitless arguing, and she was looking at the mountains. “If you’re going to use a satellite phone to call for a helicopter, why doesn’t the helicopter just pick up the baby and take it back to the hospital at Chandannath, where they have neonatal incubators, modern medical equipment, and hot and cold running doctors?”
