OF GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL

So this time round I ended up wearing a totally different hat. My niece who is five months old had been sickly on and off, she lives with my brother and his wife in Nakuru. For the past month or so I have been giving over the phone advice on whether the medicine they received at the local clinic was good and what it was for. My pediatric colleagues have time and time again warned about phone consultations...and any good doctor worth their salt knows that those consultations don't work. If you are sick, please just go to hospital, saves a whole lot of people a whole lot of complications...I digress again!So mum calls me and says that the ka baby doesn't look too good and she's worried. Of course, most of the times grandmas judgement is not to be ignored.

We arrange to send some money over so that the baby is taken to a pediatrician in Nakuru town, at least for a thorough assessment. So they take the baby to a "doc" who on seeing the infant sends them to Nakuru PGH for further evaluation. When they get there, they are quickly told that the baby needs admission. They go through the motions and baby is admitted in hospital. as a doc I know that if a Govt Hosp recommended admission the situation is dire so I get a bit apprehensive but I know that all hospitals in this country are well equipped to deal with all under fives ailments.

Come morning, mum calls me, literally in tears. Her granddaughter has been put on oxygen! ( I don't know why this statement always throws people in a panic, sometimes when am so tired from one of those crazy shifts I wish I could get some oxygen down my nostrils and reduce the effort of breathing as I rest.........!!! Again, I digress) Of course I also get concerned and decide to drive down to see my niece. And being the "family doctor" my mother would feel more at ease.

When I get to the hospital, I mean.....I can't even begin to explain what I felt. I was totally unprepared for it. The Pediatric ward is one long room, very long! Beds are arranged along the walls, reminds me of my dormitory room in primary school. The ward is stuffy, I mean....really really stuffy, I doubt there's any oxygen in the air. The ward is teeming with all kinds of people, sick babies with their mothers looking worried, others screaming their little lungs away, concerned and confused fathers hanging around, other visitors all carrying different wares(read food) for the patients. two doctors are working in a corner shaving the poor scalp of a screaming baby desperately looking for IV access to give fluids to the obviously dehydrated child.

I ask for my niece and the friendly nurses(shockingly) point at a station and says she is in the acute room. (Acute room is where the really sick babies are put for easy and frequent monitoring or oxygen etc). Now, this particular acute room is just a bed in the big general stuffy ward, with like seven babies all on oxygen coming form a single oxygen unit with multiple small tubes each directed towards the sick babies. The mothers are seated on a bench, each trying to ensure that the oxygen tube to their baby is not yanked off by the desperate kicks of the child lying next to hers.

My niece was suffering from severe pneumonia and her chest was moving up and down so fast. The other six babies next to her looked equally sick and all were gasping and holding on to dear life. I wondered, in such a situation, does the child get better or worse? Poor ventilation, overcrowding? Hospital acquired infections? Spread of the gazillion strains of bacteria in that ward let alone "The acute room".

Lucky for her, we managed to transfer her to a private hospital, the difference was glaring! private room, toiletries, air....oh, the air!!The little girl is off oxygen now, markedly improved but still on IV antibiotics for a couple of more days. My heart goes out to the other mothers I left seated on the "acute room" bench hoping and praying for their little ones..... God works overtime for his people and am sure they will get better, but today, I take a moment to Thank God that I can afford the basics in life. And asking our good God, to please help our Government.......Our People...the poor six i left on the "acute room" in Nakuru PGH and the many doctors working out there, effortlessly making do with what you have!