Worldcrunch
Back in 2017, the Philadelphia Inquirer spoke with Chera Kowalski of the city’s McPherson Square Park library, which had become something of a refuge for drug addicts with nowhere else to turn. In the previous two months alone, the then 33-year-old librarian had performed CPR and administered opioid-overdose spray Narcan on eight different overdose victims. […]
JAKARTA — Yanti, 93, lives in a tiny room along with three other family members in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. She’s unable to move or get up so she lies on a bed that dominates the cramped space. The air is thick with the stench of stale urine. Yanti tells me she can’t pass a bowel movement. She says she’s constantly urinating. She lies on a layer of opened diapers. She grabs the flesh on my arm, which suddenly feels more chubby and elastic than ever before in her bony hand covered in thin, papery skin. Palliative care is […]