Did someone call for an ambulance?

It's amazing what we take for granted here in the States.  Where I work, my office faces the central fire department.  Some days, it's kind of quiet. Other days, I turn to them as they drive by, put my finger to my mouth, and say "SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH".  It can get quite annoying hearing sirens as often as I do some days.  One day, I was  having a phone conversation, the fire trucks/ambulance went by, and went by and went by.  The caller asked if I needed to leave my building due to an emergency.  I told him the sirens weren't coming to my office.  I'm thankful that emergency personnel is close at hand.  

During one clinic day, we saw a very sick little girl that had a fever around 105 degrees.  It was crazy high, and the little girl was quite sick with malaria.  After giving her medication to help reduce the fever, a conversation was had with the little girls mom that she would need to go to the hospital.  Unfortunately, they didn't have the transportation available to get there.  An ambulance was called around 11am.

We (as Americans) expect that when we call for an ambulance, that one will appear quickly if we live in a town.  If we live outside of town, it's a bit slower, but they will arrive in a decent amount of time.  We also expect that those who are on the ambulances are trained medical personnel.

Not so in Zambia.  We called for the ambulance around 11am.  The little girl was given a round of Tylenol, a round of ibuprofen (2 hours later), another round of Tylenol (2 hours later) and another round of ibuprofen (yep, you guessed it, 2 hours later).  This little girl could have benefited from IV fluids as well, but Dr was not able to do so.  The personnel on the ambulance are not trained medical professionals.  If something were to happen to the IV, the wouldn't know what to do.

So what time did the ambulance FINALLY arrive?  I think it was around 7pm or so.  If you are doing the math, yep, that is 8 hours between the time they were called, to the time they actually arrived.  What happened between the time they called and the arrival time?  The story we were given included a few vehicle breakdowns and another call (or 2, or 3...).  We are pretty sure they had to stop for dinner as well.

We pray that this little girl with malaria received the treatment she needed.