It is a story that could have been lifted from a fable. A 12-year-old boy in rural Ethiopia, clutching a limp and feverish chicken, walked for hours to the nearest hospital. Not for himself, but for the bird he had raised from a chick.
Staff at the clinic turned him away, explaining that their mission is human health, not veterinary care. But the boy refused to leave. He waited, patient and resolute, as doctors and nurses went about their rounds.
Eventually, a paediatrician, moved by the boy's desperation, examined the chicken and administered water and antibiotics. The chicken survived. The boy smiled.
For a moment, the chasm between human and animal care narrowed, bridged by compassion in a country where healthcare for either is scarce. The story has since spread, a small beacon in a landscape of struggle. In Ethiopia, one of the world's poorest nations, a boy's love for a chicken reminds us what health is truly about: the stubborn refusal to let any creature suffer alone.
