What Is the Best Treatment? 25
Juanita felt so uncertain about what to do that she went
to see Valeria again. When Juanita explained her fears,Valeria
suggested thinking about the problem this way:
Every treatment has risks and benefits. A risk is the chance
that something may cause harm. A benefit is the good that
something may bring. The best choice is to do something that
will cause the greatest benefit and the smallest risk.
It may help to think about scales you use to weigh food
in the market. Some things weigh more than others, and
many small things can weigh more than one big thing. The
same is true for risks and benefits. If the risks ‘weigh’ more
than the benefits, then the action is not worth doing.
These are the benefits of
going to the city:
• I will feel better and can go on
caring for my family.
• I will be able to have more children.
• I will not pass the infection on to
the baby if I become pregnant.
I will face these risks if I go to the city:
• Raul may be angry when he finds out.
• I will have to spend some of our savings.
If it were just so I’d feel
better, the treatment
wouldn’t be worth it. But if
it’s true that I’ll get much
sicker and cannot have
more children, then I must
go to the city.
So Juanita went to the city for treatment, where the doctors
said it was true that she had gonorrhea and probably chlamydia,
but no signs of other STIs or
problems. They explained that
the medicine she had taken no longer
works in her country. They gave Juanita a
newer medicine for both her and her husband.
Where Women Have No Doctor 2012