Memories and musings from a hospital bed

Kenyatta National Hospital. PHOTO| FILE| NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • ‘Is this a hospital or a hotel?’ my seven-year-old son Andreas asked as he entered the room, where I was being treated for the first time at Nairobi Hospital.

Last week, there was a similar but unspoken reaction by our young intern, Mercy, when she came to bring me some papers to sign. I could see her eyeing the TV on the wall, the fridge, the wardrobe, and all the switches, swivel light, oxygen access point, among others.

Let me digress a little bit. Some years back, a group of Kenyan journalists invited me to give them a talk. I was puzzled by their request, but I went along.

‘Why have you asked me to give you a talk?’ I asked. ‘My Going Places column is a hobby and not a job!’

“Well, for me, I would like to know how you get your stories,” said one of the journalists. “What do you mean?” I posed. “For example, the other week you went to a sports bar, and you made a story out of it. But if I go to a sports bar, I only have a drink with my friends and watch a football match – that’s all.”

“But wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, there has to be a story,” I said.

I gave them examples of questions that have led to stories in my column. “Why is this Thika hotel called ‘Blue Post?’ I asked the then manager. And in our conversation, it became clear he didn’t know that Winston Churchill once shot a lion in the hotel grounds on his visit to Kenya in 1907. (Come to think of it, I still don’t know why the hotel was called Blue Post. I guess it was because the post where patrons tethered their horses was painted blue.)

Then there was the question asked by my taxi-driver as she picked me up one early morning to go to the airport.

“Where are you going to this time, Mr John?’

“Vietnam.” “Oh, then you are going to the war!”

STORY TRIGGER

When I picked the English language newspaper while I was there, and it had an article on the front page with the headline, ‘Vietnam: The Safest Country for Tourists’ — then I knew I had a story.

Back to Nairobi Hospital... So what was the trigger for this story? From the window in my room at the hospital, I could see the imposing square building of Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH).

And that brought back a memory. It was in 1967, and I was on my way out to Kenya for the first time aboard the SS Uganda. Among the passengers was a tall, grey haired professor of Medicine from the University of Edinburgh. He was so enthusiastic about the job he was about to undertake in Kenya.

“I am going to help establish a national hospital in Nairobi. It will be the best equipped and staffed of all the State hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.

I wonder whether he could have possibly imagined the pressures KNH would have to face — in a country where the population was only about 12 million when he came in 1967, and has now grown to over 40 million now.

Could he have anticipated the funding and staffing problems that the hospital has encountered? And how would his ghost feel now if it could pay the hospital a visit?

A few years back I had a hip replacement done at the Nairobi Hospital. Twice on his post-operation visits, the surgeon thanked me. I was silent the first time, but on the second occasion I asked, “Why are you thanking me? Surely I should be the one thanking you!’

‘Well, for showing your trust,’ he said, ‘Many mzungus like you would choose to go back to the UK — or even fly to South Africa — rather than be treated here.’

I told the surgeon about the one "procedure" I have had done in a UK hospital in recent years. The doctor performed it efficiently, I am sure. But, poor fellow, it was the same procedure he was doing day-in day-out. I tried to chat with him, but he wasn’t interested. It was all so mechanical, so cold.

But here in Nairobi Hospital – and I’m sure it would be the same scenario in Aga Khan Hospital — I reckon I am in the hands of experts. And with them there is an interaction, a conversation, a relationship.

But when I look at KNH through the window, and when I remember the many visits I have made to health centres and outreach clinics across the country — and in other countries across the continent on my consultancy assignments — I can’t help but recognise how lucky I am to have the means to pay the insurance to have such quality healthcare. This is an unequal and unfair world, isn’t it?

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John Fox is managing director of iDC