In a world where doctors, nurses and other health workers are dying daily, as well as fellow Kenyans, all our leaders, including Raila Amolo Odinga, need to do better.
This week, among the many Covid-19 deaths reported, was that of a painfully young doctor. He had not been paid for five months nd had not received any of the care that he should have gotten at the advanced stage of his sickness.
On his deathbed, this doctor urged fellow medics to cut their losses and run because this country was neither going to save them nor get them their insurance, dues, risk allowances, or even the basic personal protective equipment.
The newspaper headline the next day said this doctor gave his life for Kenya, deplorably.
Gave his life? Are we at war such that people must give their lives? Why did he have to, in a situation that was clearly avoidable? Did he go to school give his life for Kenya?
I believe the answer here is 'no'. When a dying man is telling everyone to get out, the answer is 'no'.
Mr Odinga was earlier quoted as saying that doctors should try and be more understanding because we are in a crisis. And it is not only doctors who are dying.
For how long must the doctors be understanding, surely? Doctors have been pleading, begging and striking for better conditions for years. How long must this continue? Can he be more understanding?
It is so deeply unfair and so grossly inhumane to ask the medical fraternity to continue to work to death. It would appear that our politicians, quite content with getting passes to fly out to Dubai or wherever for holidays or treatment, can easily make declarations of selflessness because they do not ever have to make these concessions.
Maybe if they didn’t have ventilators in their homes they would care more about the people. Perhaps if they too had to actually enter Kenyatta hospital, they would be quicker about making sure the facility is fully equipped.
Kenyans are dying. What happens when the only people who can treat them are dying too? Should they just walk off the plank, one by one, until no one is left?
This whole fiasco - all these deaths - are avoidable. I’m not saying that increasing salaries and providing PPE will cure Covid-19 and result in zero cases.
I am saying that giving doctors these basic fundamentals will change the course of Covid-19 in this country and result in fewer cases, and fewer doctors dying.
I am saying that you cannot expect doctors who do not have basic health and risk insurance to commit suicide every day by doing their job, just because it is their passion and life’s work.
I am saying that it makes me incredulous to see pictures in the news about how PPE is being released from the port, all of a sudden. Why was it there so long? Were the containers using it?
RIP, Dr Stephen Mogusu. Your country failed you.
