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Your seven-year-old son is seriously ill. Regional hospital doctors diagnosed acute appendicitis with the risk of peritonitis. They recommend surgery within 12 hours. The operating risk is real, the anesthesia is uncertain, and the hospital lacks equipment.
But your wife — and all his family — I don't think so. Your marabout, in whom the entire village has had absolute confidence for thirty years, claims that the child is a victim of a spell and that surgery would make things worse. It offers a three-day spiritual retreat with herbal treatments and Koranic recitations.
You're shot. You grew up in this faith. You saw the marabout heal what medicine had abandoned. But you also saw children die of untreated appendicitis.
Who decides your son's life?
- Hospital A risky but medically justified operation, against the will of your wife and family.
- The marabout A spiritual approach that your community believes deeply, but that medicine cannot condone.
