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When 19-month-old Nazario started coughing and having a fever, his mother took him to the doctor to get some medication. When the symptoms did not improve the parents decided instead to seek the help of a traditional healer, a Hilot, who proceeded to make tiny burn marks across his chest in an attempt to help ease his breathing.
After 3 weeks, Nazario’s condition had become so bad that the parents were forced to take him to hospital. Nazario was refusing to feed and was crying out in pain. By the time he arrived in the emergency room he was barely able to breathe. Nazario was diagnosed with pneumonia – a condition his mother knew nothing about. The pneumonia was so advanced that the fluid in his lungs that had built up due to the bacterial infection had leaked into his chest cavity – a complication of pneumonia called Pleural Effusion. X-rays showed that the fluid on one side was placing so much pressure on his organs that his heart and windpipe had been pushed across to the other side of his body. If the fluid had continued to build, Nazario would have died.
Nazario had an emergency procedure to place a tube into his chest to drain the pus. He was put under close observation in the ICU, where his was given oxygen and intravenous antibiotics.
The chest drain was fitted just in time and after a week in ICU, Nazario was stable enough to be placed on a normal ward and the tube was removed.
The treatment was expensive and his parents were under immense strain to find the money, much of which they begged and borrowed from family, friends, neighbours. But they regret the fact that fear of the cost of treatment meant they delayed seeking proper medical help. They also remain devastated that they knew nothing about pneumonia and allowed the illness to progress to a near-fatal stage.
We could barely make out the tiny, skinny figure that walked towards us through the thick haze. As huge clouds of smoke rose up from the earth, we discovered it was a pretty little nine year old girl called Rosalie. Here in this forgotten ‘Hell on Earth’ she lives, plays, coughs and wheezes, amongst the mass of charcoal burning sites that families like hers rely on to make a living.
Rosalie was one of the Pneumonia victims that we followed during the making of my film. Her home - Sitio Damayan - was basically sited on a huge rubbish dump in the Philipino capital of Manila. “Damayan” means ‘mutual’, or ‘working together’, and that’s what really struck me about the place. Despite the poverty, overcrowding, malnutrition, and the horrendous air pollution that are all major causes of Pneumonia, there seemed to be a good community vibe and people were genuinely welcoming to us.
I came away from this project with the impression that tackling Pneumonia is a difficult challenge. The causes of this disease are many and complex - it’s rooted in poverty, poor living conditions and a variety of other risk factors. So, in my view, there is no simple silver bullet that can solve this problem.
