Where I come from, it is very difficult to feign sickness. A lot is required for one to be fully satisfied that you are sick. And one of the common tests are food. If you claim to be sick, your behavior during meals will be thoroughly scrutinised and any change on eating habits checked. Reason?
Our people believe that every form of sickness must come with it loss of appetite. Being taken to the hospital is another big thing. It is widely seen as a show of luxury, that is only sought when one is a step away from the grave.
This is happening against a backdrop of health being a basic right of every Kenyan, as gallantly proclaimed in article 43 of the Kenyan constitution and reaffirmed in the Health Act of 2015.
Speaking Emergency
Several years ago, an electioneering period like this, Kenya lost one of the 'soft spoken, eloquent fearless defender of patient's rights and an advocate for improved healthcare' who served in the marginalized areas of Kwale County. We had lost Dr.Allan Makokha who was devoted to serving Kwale residents. But how exactly did this happen? Read on.
Doctors are also human beings after all. Illness knows no profession, and in sickness, we are just vulnerable.
In the middle of the night, a whole county health system did not have a pint of blood to keep him frim bleeding out as he was being referred to a special facility. The saddest bit, as per recorded in Healthy Nation magazine of Tuesday, October 31st 2017, was that the generous soul died because he ''spent hours trapped in the south coast in an ambulance waiting for a ferry crossing to be honoured'.
Surely, isn't an ambulance with flashing sirens enough to make a ferry brake the schedule to save a life?
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Emergency