Our Healthcare System : What A Shame!

For the last five years, the country began to actively watch on their news screens, about the doctors' strike. Myself included. It was seemingly, the very first time it was aired continously on mainstream media, as families forked down mouthfuls of ugali, nyama na spinach, with their eyes darting furtively between their plates, and their television screens.

WE have news for you. This struggle is not five years long. It has been on for the last 53 years. Since independence. I was not born yet, neither were my siblings. The struggle got passed on from generation to generation, with strikes as an end result after all dialogue would break down. 1994. 2011. Doctors took to the streets, and things went from worst, to worst.

This frustration started in many doctors' minds way before it presented itself on your screens. It started from the moment this doctor, went to primary school, often without shoes, and without books required to cover the syllabus. It started when this doctor had to borrow those books from other class members in order to finish homework before trekking home, barefoot, and under the scorching sun. It started with this doctor having sheer determination to get proper grades, in order to find a way to propel their family out of abject poverty. It started with this doctor reading in the wee of the night, at a time when rural electrification was a mirage of a dream in this country; and reading from the glow of a tin lamp, dozing off from time to time, and taking care not to burn his tattered books, awash with dog ears on its edges.

What a shame.

Then KCPE came, and WE scored anything above 550 marks and more, out of an impossible maximun of 700 marks. These were marks that got students hoisted on the backs of villagers and family, in celebration and ululation. If the current TV questions existed then, just as they exist now, on what they would like to be when they grew up, they would shyly say,along with the judges, the lawyers, the engineers and the architects; "I'd like to be a doctor. Or a cardiologist. Or a neurosurgeon." The same kind of answers WE see today being uttered by the achieving children of 2016.  On prime time news. There never misses a child who aspires to become a doctor.

What a shame.

This doctor then goes to a National Secondary School, and the struggle is real. He engages in little (if any) extracurricular activity, because he chooses to keep his eye on his prize- to take care of the health of humanity. Mostly, he is on a scholarship, or some form of bursary, having beaten all odds. He is hopeful, and visionary. He truly wants to make a difference through servitude.

He scores A's in pretty much all the subjects, and, is hoisted up in the sky by his hopeful relatives back in the village yet again. His dream of going to medical school is within his grasp now.

What a shame.

He joins the University of Nairobi, and his other peers go to Moi Teaching and Referral University Medical School. Unfortunately, there are a few slots to study medicine, (inspite of stellar perfomances). In pursuit of their dream, some apply for scholarships, and go to nearby Uganda, and some as far as Russia.

What a shame.

Medical school is hell on earth. It is clearly and literally defined by these three words: Blood, Sweat, and Tears." 

The size of books the doctor carries to class will cause one to break a sweat. Reading each ginormous book and putting all the information in your head because Medical exams have no "Mwakenya" requires serious, actual sweat. The amount of blood involved from Year 1 (from cutting up a dead body  to study on how a human being looks inside), all the way to Year 6, is like a flowing river. And the tears? And WE mean, "machozi". Tears everywhere. Tears when you have to retake an exam, and realize just how much effort is involved. Tears when a colleague commits suicide after the hopelessness associated with failing the grueling exams. Tears when you pass and are recommended to proceed into the following year and you remember how you read from dusk to dawn, and on to dusk. Tears when you read so hard for your exam, while in the parallel program where fees cost Kshs 500,000/-, and the shamba your mother was meant to sell in time for exams has no buyer, and are thus forced to repeat another year. Tears  when a five to six year course becomes eight, nine or ten years. Sad tears. Relief tears. Happy tears. Painful tears. Hot, stinging, tears.

What a shame.

Only to finally complete medical school, a degree is awarded, the title "Dr." is prefixed on OUR surname, and WE all unanimously take the Hippocratic oath on the graduation period. WE are then posted by the government for internship, to serve the human population.

What a shame.

Without missing a beat, the drama begins.  We hit the ground running. Shock therapy!

Improvisation is the order of the day. Not enough gloves, machinery, infrastructure, human resource, sleep, rest, recreation, family time, no weekends, no weekdays, poor salary, delayed salary, no salary, stopped salary, no drugs,few drugs, short expiry drugs, third hand generic drugs, dirty linen, tattered linen, flimsy, "hand-me-down over the decades" linen, on-off electricity, poorly maintained stand-by generators, lack of proper supply of water, food, fuel, blood for transfusion- you name it- its is lacking. It is not there. It is out of stock. Hakuna.

What a shame.

And should the doctor decide to go back for post graduate training, best believe that it is an "out-of-the-frying-pan-and-into-the-fire" scenario. The grueling schedules are worse than anticipated, with more years of study slapped upon them. The dream becomes more elusive, like the faintest blip on a radar. And after completion, the same lack of moving parts in the health sector beckons, in worse condition and shouldering more responsibility.

What a shame. 

The only thing in abundance is the steady stream of patients, all with gut wrenching ailments, looking up to you to alleviate their suffering. They depend on us 100% , and do not know how many times WE have cried in a corner of the hospital, feeling so sorry and angry, after having to break news of death and suffering to relatives, over things that could have saved the day, only if the system was serious about the Kenyan's health. Little do they know that WE are on their side, and always have been. That if WE could, WE would bite into our wrists like vampires, and transfuse our dying patients', our blood if only it was possible and ethical. Yet it is not OUR fault that the blood banks are dry.

Little do they know that WE are so sick from time to time due to poor infection control in the wards, and have swallowed a cocktail of pain relievers just to come back in the fold, hang in there and treat others. Little do they know how many times WE have pricked ourselves accidentally with needles, frantically trying to save a pregnant mother, or a road accident father-of-two in theatre, who also happens to be HIV Positive.

Little do they know how many times WE hold the hands of infective Tuberculosis patients as they cough smack in OUR faces. WE "work part time" in private hospitals, smiling painfully and taking care of middle class patients with medical insurance, whereby WE offer treatment that WE cannot afford.

What a shame.

WE improvise, until it does not work anymore. Until WE finally realize that WE are not meant to improvise to begin with, since for 53 years, WE have an independent country, that has a budget, aid, a constitution, agendas, 40 million Kenyans, a political class who are the custodians and servants of its citizenry, and Millenium Development Goals.

What a shame.

Following the previous strike, WE entered negotiations with the government, and WE signed a legal and binding Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), in 2013, to be implemented. Three years from the inception of the CBA between the doctor and the Government, it has been a wild goose chase getting them to honour their end of the deal. Now, its intimidations, lies and propaganda in media, that is taking centre stage.

What a shame!

WE are now witnessing a real time, live episode of " Tom and Jerry." And not the funny, rib-cracking kind. What a shame.

WHAT A SHAME.. WHAT A SHAME!!!

The time has come. It is long overdue. The time is now.

Let us all intentionally purpose to fix our health systems. A time may come, where we may ALL need it to work for all of us.

#DWM