B_kind retweetledi
GRAPHIC PHOTOS:
There is a trending conversation on Kenyan X about the deteriorating Public Health System.
This is a conversation that never ends.
The public health system gets worse every year because we have allowed politicians to infiltrate the health system.
Governors, Senators and MCAs influence the structure, resources and frameworks that govern the public health sector.
They decide who receives supplies, who receives resources and what framework runs the system. All this is to siphon resources allocated to the delivery of public health services.
They cripple our health sector, but when they fall sick, they fly abroad.
The photos you are seeing were taken by me back in 2019 when I was heading a public hospital.
This woman had been assaulted by her husband after an evening quarrel because of food.
When she came to the emergency department, her ear was dangling like a soot strand hanging precariously from my grandmother's hut.
In the emergency department, at the minor theatre, in the emergency tray:
• There were no stitching needles or surgical sutures.
• There were no sterilised packs.
• There was no lignocaine for local anaesthesia.
I had no choice but to fix her earlobe.
This was the time when NHIF revenue allocation had just been transferred from the Hospital Management Team to the County Treasury, where County Officials decided who, when, and how much hospitals would receive to fund their budgets.
So, because there were no supplies, I had to beg the maternity matron for them, promising to replenish them.
I did the work. I fixed the earlobe and discharged her.
She didn't have any money with her, which was, of course, obvious, given the family's disagreement over food.
So, I had to dip into my pocket to buy Lignocaine, sutures and Jik to sterilise the pack I had borrowed.
The public health system has been in a mess because self-serving politicians distorted the spirit of devolving the health function.
These politicians spend county resources on buildings, aesthetics, decor, colour, and public relations exercises, except for the basics like:
• Adequate supplies.
• A motivated health care staff.
• A reliable and accessible system.
Unless we overhaul the entire system of political brinkmanship and wheeler-dealers,
Unless we say enough is enough and commit ourselves to draining the swamp,
Unless we stop glamorizing corruption,
Unless we stop sterilizing negative ethno-chauvinist politicians,
Unless we stop pretending to detest corruption, yet when it favours us, we say it is "God's Grace,"
— We shall continue gnashing our teeth, year in and year out.
The people who are silent when doctors, clinicians, nurses and other healthcare staff are complaining about dwindling public health services are the same people who silently collude with corrupt politicians to supply substandard resources in our public hospitals.
CHANGE or PERISH
#BetterTogether
English
