This section of the website allows you to share your experiences and solutions with the rest of the community.

With so many stories of exploitation and poor delivery of health services in our health sector, we would like to hear your personal experiences both good and bad. We appreciate there are still good health care providers even in the midst of this darkness. There are still medics who still carry out their work with diligence and compassion and who have continued to hold MEDICINE AS A VOCATION while others have converted it into a TOOL OF TRADE.

We would like you to share your experiences with both. Let us also hear about your experiences in both Public and Private health institutions. This information will be used to advice a reward system for the medics and institutions carrying out this noble Vocation with the Honor it demands. The Parameters are COMPASSIONATE, QUALITY and AFFORDABLE care. Feel free to nominate any Doctor, Nurse, Clinical officer who you feel displayed any of the above traits. Where it is an institution, mention individuals who have made the difference and then rate the institution for affordability and overall quality of the services.

Maureen’s Story:

A SORRY STATE OF AFFAIRS

Thirteenth April, 2011 is the day I will never forget, as it was jam-packed with anguish and pain. My younger sister and I set off very early for Tigoni District Hospital as she was very sick and by 8.00 am we were already at the infirmary. It was a long and tedious journey as none of us was very well acquainted with the place.

While seated at the waiting room bench, two gentlemen walked in. They captured my attention as they looked drunk and dirty. One had a bandage on his forehead while the other was staggering. The latter told his colleague to wait for him in vernacular language.

“I hope this is not the doctor”, I whispered to my sister.

“I don’t think so”, came back an affirmed response.

However, this was not to be. To our rudest shock, the staggering man was the doctor. Confused and my mouth agape, I looked at the other patients who seemed unmoved by the fact that the person they had entrusted with their dear lives was drunk. They gave the impression of being helpless and to them, this was the order of the day.

My assumptions were made true when almost half of the patients at the waiting room confirmed that “Daktari” is ever drunk. His colleague had the audacity to tell me that he really treats patients very well while he is in that drunken state! This really agitated me as these are human beings, whose lives are at stake.

It being 12.00 noon, my sickly sister and the other patients were still in the queue and the drunken doctor was attending to them, I took the initiative to ask for the doctor in charge but was told that it was the superintendent nurse who was on duty. I went ahead and confronted her.

I found the nurse in her office and asked her whether she was aware that the doctor attending to patients was drunk. “Yes”, she answered.  She further told me that she had been informed and that someone was taking care of it. Her riposte could not convince me.

When she saw the confidence I had she decided to take up the matter.  With anger written all over my face, I stormed out of the office. On my way out I saw a lady security officer and decided to befriend her.  I explained the matter to her but we were interrupted by the superintendent nurse, who sent the security lady to go get the drunk doctor.

It was drama and chaos in the compound as the security officers were trying to get the drunken doctor out of his hiding place, since he had heard that he was being summoned to the superintendent’s nurse office. Eventually, they managed to evict him out. The hospital came to a standstill as it was only this drunken doctor who was handling patients.

My newly acquired friend, the security officer, came back to inform me that Mr. Wanjohi, (the drunken doctor) was not a doctor but a clinical officer. I was enraged. She further revealed that she had been given a letter to take to Mr. Wanjohi, and it was a transfer letter from Tigoni to Nyeri. To me, this was not a solution, as the people of Nyeri would suffer the same consequences.

I decided to take my sister to a private hospital. While I was in the matatu, I wondered what would happen to the other patients that I had left at the hospital and they could not afford the cost of going to a private hospital.

I called Hope FM and spoke to Sammy Kaihuri who, after sharing with him he decided to air the story and that is how I got assistance. I am ready to see Kenyans being treated as humans, in whichever hospital  they go and also to see the spirit of excellence in whatever public institution I visit.

Report by

Maureen