Opinion – Frontline: Say 33; 33 million hungry Brazilians

With a stethoscope in his ears and some seriousness, the doctor asks: say thirty-three. With this maneuver, we try to listen to the vibration of the voice, the noise can help to differentiate between a normal lung, pneumonia and a pleural effusion, for example.

This week, the thirty-three stamped on newspaper headlines served us as a diffuse diagnosis. Thirty-three million Brazilians starving. One of the world’s greatest agricultural production powers, a starving nation, more than three times the population of Haiti: starving Brazilians.

Among the emergency stretchers full of empty bellies, I remember a homeless man admitted for excruciating abdominal pain.

With hypotheses of pancreatitis, laboratory tests little changed, he was waiting for a tomography.

Doctor, the patient is agitated.

The man rips off the monitoring electrodes and swings on the stretcher, projecting his body out of bed, he trembles and stretches the venous accesses.

I approach to try to talk.

Will you make me hungry? Are you kidding me! I’ll end it all here. I will end it all. I want to eat.

There are hungry people, there are hungry people.

If people are hungry, give them food.

He is fasting waiting for the CT scan.

It’s okay to eat. It’s okay to eat.

He will miss the exam.

It’s enough to eat.

The man devours the contents of the voluminous plate in a few spoonfuls.

The exam now postponed was suspended. The bellyache succumbed to the rice and beans, it faded.

Doctor, excuse me for the words. I just want one thing… don’t you send me away before dinner?!

I fill out the service form, diagnostic hypothesis with four letters: hunger.

As prescribed by Solano Trindade. If people are hungry, give them food.