The Story of the Abandoned Baby (Part 1)
This is a male infant born just two days ago. He has a delicate appearance, and the redness on his body hasn't yet faded. Due to having only two fingers on each hand and underdeveloped feet, he was abandoned by his parents in a roadside bush. A kind-hearted person found him and brought him to Yuan Lihai, who takes care of abandoned babies. Although not wealthy, Yuan Lihai's humble shack houses dozens of children ranging in age from two days to twenty years old. The children are all different: some have snow-white skin and hair, others suffer from cerebral palsy and cannot move, some have heads covered in pus-filled sores, others crawl on the ground unable to walk, and there are also deaf and mute children. In short, any type of disability that people know about can be found here. Of course, there are also healthy children.
The shack is very broken and dark, with piles of donated clothes everywhere. Perhaps due to the smell, flies buzz around. Because of the cramped space, regardless of age, every bed holds several children. Especially the newborns, many of whom were once healthy when they were first brought here, but now most are disabled. Some are blind, others suffer from heart disease or other illnesses; minor cases include cleft palates, while severe ones are incurable diseases. Standing in that dark and low shack, watching the newly arrived footless baby boy wailing, waving his tiny fist no bigger than a garlic clove, moving his head back and forth searching for his mother's nipple, finding none, he begins to suck his own small fist. After sucking a few times, he cries again. Watching him wave his limbs helplessly and cry weakly, I don’t understand how his parents could abandon him. He is so small, only as big as an adult’s shoe. Though he has a nose, eyes, and mouth, he lacks awareness. He doesn’t know that he will never find the nipple again. His mother, the woman who gave birth to him and granted him life, has already abandoned him. He himself does not know either. He is so fragile and tender, a gust of wind could take his life, and even slight neglect could lead to his death. He doesn’t know that he was abandoned in the wild just two days after being born, like a blade of grass, or perhaps less than a blade of grass, because for a newborn, abandonment means death. He is so unlucky, because he was abandoned, but he is also so lucky, because he was found in time and sent to Sister Yuan.
He doesn’t know that this place is a paradise for disabled children, it’s their main base. Here, there is no discrimination, no abandonment. Sister Yuan will treat him like her own child. Although the number of children here is overwhelming, pickled vegetables superman part seven—pickled vegetable farting... Although this place looks like hell on earth, there is love here, there is family affection here, and these two things are enough.
When I first came here, I couldn’t control myself and burst into tears, crying for so many abandoned babies, for those children who either have no hands, no feet, heads full of sores, cerebral palsy, or cleft palates. I cried even more for the parents of abandoned babies who do such inhuman things. Looking at the faces of these troubled children breaks your heart. Children, the most heart-wrenching word in this world, the most adorable little creatures, God's angels, earthly treasures, capable of bringing endless joy, light, and hope, stirring up infinite love in people. These little beings carry all our hopes and dreams for the future, and we give them the most beautiful words in the world, such as treasure, baby, good boy/girl, sweetheart, etc. But here, what you see is not hope, not beauty, not happiness, but endless sorrow, pain, and torment. Because these children may be a lifelong burden and debt to you, or even the root cause of your lifelong poverty and inability to be happy, so their parents abandoned them. Maybe out of despair, because they can't be cured; maybe out of poverty, without money for treatment.
People don't know that for smaller children, especially newly arrived infants, the survival rate is very low because they are usually abandoned in the wild. This is still manageable in spring, but if it's summer or winter, such fragile lives can hardly withstand the harshness of the world. According to Sister Yuan, in winter, some children are brought in covered in snow, and in summer, some are covered in flies. Those who survive have great fortune, because the conditions here aren't good either, just a large shack that leaks rain. With so many children and few caretakers, in winter, to prevent children from kicking off their blankets and catching a cold, bricks are used to hold down the edges of the blankets. Although plenty of clothes are donated, money is still scarce. She has no money to take the children to the hospital, even though a hospital is right next door, luxurious like a hotel, but "if you're sick and have no money, don't come in." Because the hospital is nearby, there are more abandoned babies, many of whom are diagnosed in this hospital and then abandoned due to high medical costs. Despite being separated by just a wall, one side is like heaven, the other like hell, but this isn't the fault of the hospital staff. The problem of unaffordable healthcare exists nationwide, it's a systemic issue, not an individual one. It's just that Lankao is poorer, so these problems may be more prominent. Although some in the hospital say Sister Yuan affects their image and want to drive her away, there are also many warm-hearted people in the hospital helping Sister Yuan. Selfishness vs. selflessness, evil vs. kindness, these struggles exist everywhere, including in the Lankao hospital.
Although the current state of national healthcare reform is far from ideal and the difficulty of accessing healthcare remains unresolved, it's encouraging that while serious illnesses cannot be treated, conditions like cleft lip are being treated for free in many places. Several children from Sister Yuan's place have been treated for free by hospitals in Zhengzhou. Although the social impact isn't significant, its significance is immense. At the very least, it shows that not all medical institutions are driven by profit; they still have a conscience. Not all doctors wield knives to harm, some use them to save lives. Recently, I heard that heart disease can also be treated for free, and I sighed with relief. I truly hope that the speed of national healthcare reform can accelerate, so that hospitals across the country aren't as luxurious as hotels, and medical fees aren't so high. I hope that wherever you go, if you're sick, you can get treatment, and sick people can die in the hospital rather than waiting at home to die. I also hope that knowledge of prenatal care and family planning can spread like sunlight to all villages and remote areas, as well as those getting married. Of course, I hope even more that medical insurance can cover young children and infants first, the group that needs protection the most.