Pot full of death.
A
Tuesday afternoon on paediatric ward seemed rather more quiet and unusually
calm ( for those who know what a normal paediatric ward feels like). Done with
the discharges, I had settled down to flip a few pages of my clinical guide lines
when suddenly a 50year –like looking woman rushes in with a baby having
generalized oedema. The child was moaning with pain I could tell by every
single turn the mother was trying to attempt to reposition her. She explains
that she had been sent on ward without her hospital book as they were still
trying to process the necessities to try save the poor fellow’s life. 5minutes
later a sachet arrives and the book was showing clear indications to start
transfusing. We set up the transfusion and proceed to admit the child. 5mins
later, I was called t attend to a “ Last office”. The child was gone. Cold
dead.-- The pain of losing a life. That
is just one of the few common cases in a rural hospital like the one I work in.
Earlier
during first encounters, the mother explained that her child was diagnosed to
have a congenital heart problem. Which did not come as surprise to me
considering the age of the mother. But what rather bothers me most is the fact
that much as we knew the diagnosis of this child we could hardly do anything to
save her life. Performing a last office kept reminding me of the possibilities
that I was going to meet more of such a kind as I worked. Something people
think medical personnel are used to. What they forget is “Life is Life”. Any lose
will always hurt any normal human.
That we
cannot provide adequate health care to our patients because we lack the
facilities is rather an annoying thought. Why for example we do not have an ICU
in a hospital which receives at least 350 patients per day on average while
some potbelly sits in a lavish up town mansion stealing off the people’s
coffers. Basic organ function tests cannot be carried out because we “lack the
facilities to”??? Really? That money is
being channelled to militaristic tendencies and forgetting to have hospitals
well stocked with drugs and have equipment maintained or replaced is an
annoying thought. That a rural hospital with such a huge capacity has no
definite water supply while ministers are busy stealing billions on government
donations, grants and taxes. One does not need to be a rocket scientist to tell
that corruption especially in the health sector is nothing but outright murder;
NOT just of one person but of millions of innocent Ugandans. The hospital is no
longer a place of healing BUT has turned out to be a “pot full of death “. Even
when the highly under paid personnel tries their best in the meagre conditions
to save a few.
My
prayer is that they be put to justice someday. FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY
#Dr. Okra.
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