Murals (2008) by PHANTAST - Graffiti - Cultural Music & Art Association inc. - 98 Milne St. Benleigh
"Who are you, little i (5 or 6 years old) peering from a high window of the hospital to the street down there?"
The family, that cardinal unit, should protect children cascading down the loveless spiral of truancy, illiteracy,street crime, violence, drug and solvent abuse, prostitution and adolescent pregnancy. The abandoning of thousands and thousands of street children illustrates in a awful way how paediatrics can never be persued in a clinical vacuum - and that solutions to these problems entail social issues and politics as much as medicine.
Such spirals of urban poverty contrast with the sane and ordered word of our paediatric clinics. Remember, doctor, there is another word or two out there. Beyond the window, the child is on tip-toe, peering out, and before she flits through it and is lost forever, weigh her, measure her, feed her, clothe her, immunize her - and above all educate her. Look after the body and the sole will look after itself provided the family is intact. You will see the huge pressure illness puts on families: don't just observe. Help in any way you can... ( Dr. Cummings)