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reviewed by Denise Flint
Hope in the Balance A Newfoundland Doctor Meets a World in Crisis Andrew Furey
Doubleday Canada $32.95 (hardcover)
In 2010, following a devastating hurricane,
Dr. Andrew Furey from Newfoundland and Labrador put together a small medical team to travel to Haiti and do what they could to help. From that first trip Team Broken Earth was formed. Now the organization has 1,200 volunteers working as small, geographically based teams from across Canada with missions around the globe. Hope in the Balance is Furey’s personal account of his work with Broken Earth, how he came to it and how he reconciles the relatively little they’re able to do with the overwhelming need for their services. As he faces one humanitarian crisis after another, he repeats to both himself and the reader the words of one of the early team members: Broken Earth is not trying to change the world, just someone’s world. There are some extremely harrowing scenes here. Furey trying to hold closed the artery of an 18-year-old gunshot victim as she bleeds to death is just one example. His decision never to return to a Haitian orphanage because he just can’t face the children is a less harrowing but equally affecting scene. Yet, rather than making us turn away, these episodes bring home to the reader our shared humanity. Saving one life might not cause a ripple in the world, but it’s clear that it makes the world a better place, not just for the recipient, but also for the one doing the saving. And, although this might not have been Furey’s original purpose, Hope in the Balance is sure to inspire others to similar acts of compassion.
30
December 2020
1-888-588-6353
