Okay, I admit it. It was an amateur mistake to believe that things would go smoothly when I found a donor to buy an x-ray machine for one of the care homes we visited in Delhi. But it seemed so simple. Wire the money to the NGO spearheading the project, and they buy the machine they expressed a dire need for. Simple, right?
Wrong. And now I'm kicking myself for it because one of the major themes of my two months learning about social work/public health here in India is that follow-through is severely lacking. Yet, I feel personally affronted by this (probably predictable) episode.
To give the care home people the benefit of the doubt, it is possible that what they say is true. They claim that now that this large sum of money has come to them, there are even more pressing and more basic needs than an x-ray machine, one of which is an "auto-analyzer" (I don't know what that is but hey, I'm not a doctor yet). This is plausible. When an NGO starved for funds and always scraping to make ends meet suddenly comes into thousands of US dollars (which goes a LONG way in my mother country), lots of needs compete for those funds. Perhaps something beat out the x-xray machine...like the auto-analyzer?
Either way, it's a shady business. I appreciate the fact that the director of the care home emailed me to notify me that the money would be used in a different way. When lives are hanging in the balance, it is important to think very carefully of how to manage limited funds. Who am I to argue? But at the same time, donors have a responsibility and a right to figure out where there money is going, and when it is earmarked for a specific project, it should go there. If it's not going to go to the project you were campaigning for to begin with, don't bother telling donors what exactly you're going to do with their money...be vague enough to end up telling the truth no matter where the funds end up going.
Not surprisingly, I don't agree with the new trend of NGO online stores that let donors purchase a heifer (or a share of a heifer), or two square kilometers of irrigated land, or a can of worms for fishermen. You probably know which organizations I'm referring to. The first time I bought a basket of chicks, I really thought that my money would go to buy several baby chicks that would be delivered to a family in need. After close inquiry, I discovered that was not the case. Rather, the lady I spoke to informed me that the basket of chicks was merely representative of the sort of thing that would be done with my funds. In reality, it was possible that my money would go to administrative costs, or some other vague necessity (not that I'm against donating money for that, these NGOs have to pay salaries and overhead somehow and that's a good cause too).
Anyway, what I'm getting at here is something else. I'm not here to complain about corruption or laziness among NGOs. I'm here to say that what I've learned here in India, big-time, is that as a public health worker, I MUST be the one to follow through. If I want to come to this country and help, the first thing I need to do is make a TIME COMMITMENT. Why didn't I go and pick out that x-ray machine myself? Because I didn't have enough time. How bad is that? If I really wanted to help, and not do a 99/100 as Paul Farmer calls it (almost, but not quite, accomplishing a necessary task), I would have ensured that the money was used wisely by putting my own sweat and blood into it.
God willing, that's exactly what I intend to do from now on. Let this be a lesson.
***Update: I called up the care home today, to inquire about what happened with the donated money. Apparently, there had been some miscommunication initially, and all along, it was an auto-analyzer, not an x-ray machine, that had been needed. As luck would have it I came down with my second case of mild food poisoning last night, so I wasn't up to schlepping around (it's at least a 45-minute drive) in the Delhi heat. I talked to the workers there, and they assured me that the auto-analyzer had been bought, and it was greatly needed. It apparently allows them to run 300 lab tests a day, and is useful for all patients, whereas the x-ray machine would have benefited only possible TB patients (a large percentage of HIV/AIDS patients, but not ALL of them).
I still have some questions. For example, there are only 26 beds in the care home; do they really need the capacity to do 300 lab tests a day? I'm not questioning their needs, simply trying to be a responsible donor. If one of the major problems with public health today is lack of leadership and management, I figure I have to do my part by seeing things through to the end.
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3 comments:
I hope someday I get as good as u are abt giving ppl the benefit of the doubt.
it's benefit of the doubt mixed with a little helplessness, unfortunately, in this case...
but at the end of the day i still firmly believe it's a duty to give more than it's a duty to make sure your charity is used as intended. both are required, but some people use the reasoning that "it's not going to be put to good use, they're just gonna waste the money" as a reason not to give the due alms to the needy. i'm not for that.
Sorry about the frustration, but this makes me think of the performance based funding we spoke of in 565, if there's a contract between money exchanges hands, then perhaps there will be more accountability. Although in India, I'm not so sure.
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