Meet Paulo Machado, the man who has lived in hospital for 45 years

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23364127

by McKittrick • 13 years ago

70 24 13 years ago

bbc.co.uk

vxNsr• 13 years ago

Sweet.

I only know one person who contracted polio, when he was 10 or eleven polio was nearly over in the US, he was one of that last children to get it here, and his case was relatively mild, he basically just lost functionality of his left calf muscle. He showed me his leg once, it's a really interesting contrast, one leg is full and normal looking and the other looks like it was taken from one of those starving african children, it's really just skin and bone.

He's been a judge in Philadelphia for more than 30 years.

beloch• 13 years ago

Polio doesn't always leave visible long-term side-effects. My father had it and was partially paralyzed for a couple of years as a child, but is normal now. He got lucky! One can only hope that, when we're so close to the final goal, people continue supporting vaccination efforts to finally put an end to this disease.

swixmix• 13 years ago

I just wanted to add some more information to your comment. The long-term side-effects are called Post Polio Syndrome and there's a International Polio Network at http://www.post-polio.org/

jacalata2• 13 years ago

The more obvious long term side effect is nerve damage/paralysis, as in the case of the article, which is distinct from post-polio syndrome.

hkmurakami• 13 years ago

The unanswered question upon reading this article for me has been, "how do these two afford this kind of care for decades?" Wealthy parents? Generous relatives? Great national healthcare coverage in Brazil?

It's just unthinkable for a normal family in the United States (I understand that these two are in Brazil) to be able to afford this, at least in this day and age.

ks• 13 years ago

According to Wikipedia it seems that Brazil has universal free health care http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Brazil

eitally• 13 years ago

Yes, but it's generally crap and everyone who can afford private insurance (or just paying list prices at private clinics), does.

<-- works with many Brazilians and spends about a month of each year there.

nikatwork• 13 years ago

Genuine question - what happens for these types of cases in the US if the patient isn't rich? Does the patient get turfed out onto the street once they run out of money?

ars6• 13 years ago

Medicaid pays for it. (And eventually Medicare when they get old enough.)

People have such a strange view of medical care in the US. Medicaid is available to anyone who needs it (i.e. financially plus special medical circumstances).

And all children in the US are able to have medical coverage - if they can't afford it the government pays for it (or gives a pro rated discount).

There is no such thing as not [being able to] have coverage for your kids because you can't afford it.

So basically the old and the young are both covered. The gap is in the middle.

leandrod3• 13 years ago

I actually collaborated with the Evangelical chaplaincy in that hospital for a few years, when I lived at that city. I knew Paulo and we became friends, but I have not kept in contact since I first left São Paulo and got married. When I did return to the city for a few years, I had a child and had a nervous breakdown, so I feared the traffic to reach the hospital.

Paulo and Eliana live at the Hospital das clínicas. It is the school‐hospital (or whatever you call that in English) of Brazil’s biggest, oldest, most influential university, the University de São Paulo. It is also Brazil’s biggest hospital, which makes it probably the biggest at least in South America. Quite naturally, it is the reference hospital for the whole of South America.

I never knew of family involvement in maintaining them. As mentioned, he lost his mother even before contracting polio; I do not know if his father is still alive, or if he has any other family. Same for Eliana.

It would have been quite natural for the Medicine school of USP to care for them as case studios, as polio was once prevalent and a mutant outbreak is still to be feared. But I suspect that, more than that, being a state‐run hospital no one ever thought of ceasing care or returning them to their families, if these are still available. It is not that expensive, as they share a section with other patients — they do have their own room — and need quite common medical equipment. Many doctors and other caregivers, such as chaplains — both are practising Christians, he Evangelical and she Romanist — volunteer time, and a few persons do brave the city’s insane traffic jams (usually measured in peak rush hours kilometers of jams; anything over 100km gets in the news, and that is not rare at all; going over 200km is rare) to visit them in the restricted alloted visit times.

This does not mean we have ‘great national healthcare coverage’. Just that these two were blessed by being referred to the Hospital das clínicas de São Paulo. As the cliché goes, it is a country of contrasts, an euphemism for inequality, often cutting in ways that some foreigners have difficulty in grasping.

ars6• 13 years ago

This jumped out at me:

"The danger of infection means that they have to live in hospital."

Isn't a hospital like the worst possible place in regards to infection?

carlob• 13 years ago

I believe the author refers to the danger of infecting others.

ars6• 13 years ago

Is polio really contagious 50 years later?

leandrod3• 13 years ago

They do live in a controlled environment. And this is a reference hospital for infection control. I know a nurse who was once one in charge of infection control in the child’s ward — actually, a smaller hospital of its own in the main hospital grounds; the whole thing is huge — and she was quite competent, as are most of the medical staff there. They usually go to conferences in the US and Europe and all that.

rurounijones• 13 years ago

One short article that was equal parts inspiring, heart-rending and heart-warming.

I look forwards to the animation.

Meet Paulo Machado, the man who has lived in hospital for 45 years

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