On Monday, September 23, 2024, Kenyans woke up to the sorrowful news that the body of a medical intern attached to the Gatundu Level 5 Hospital had been discovered dangling from the balcony of a house she shared with a friend just metres away from her place of work.
Dr Desree Moraa Obwogi had just caught her breath after a gruelling 36-hour non-stop shift that left her mental health status in shambles. She was only 27 when she died by suicide.
In a preliminary statement, Dr Muinde Nthusi, the Chairperson of the KMPDU Internship Liaison Committee, attributed Dr Moraa's predicament to a cocktail of financial hardship and an unhealthy work environment, a situation that saw her fall behind schedule in the achievement of basic needs and other lifesaving utilities while at the same time balancing the relentless pressure from her bosses above and patients below.
Dr Nthusi rallied the hope of his colleagues in sounding an alarm bell to those concerned that this latest loss provide an added impetus on the need for urgent reforms in the practice of medicine, to create a supportive environment for healthcare workers at their various spheres of influence throughout the country.
It is not the first time KMPDU have begged the government to meet them halfway on this matter. It won’t be the last time government will pretend to have heard.
The practice of medicine is not only a noble profession but also a spiritual calling. Having made a personal commitment to serve humanity at their greatest position of vulnerability, healthcare professionals at all cadres swear to save life, at the very least, and restore health, at the very best – with all they have, if at all they have, at all times.
With this Hippocratic Oath, the wider society expect of them to be endowed with certain inalienable virtues that among these are patience in hardship, perseverance at all costs, and suffering with a smile. It is a thankless job. No one asks who treats the doctor when they fall short of the mental expectation of their demanding job. For as long as the society is healed, the society moves on with their lives without looking sideways to check on the healer dropping off the wellness van.
Of all the barometers known to check the pulse of society, healthcare has proven to have all the tools to accurately put a finger on the real enemies of socioeconomic progress. Virtually every aspect of social dysfunction is intertwined with the healthcare system.
Healthcare professionals, at whatever end of the health continuum they find themselves in, interact with Kenyans in their purest form. When a village Community Health Promoter (CHP) is woken up in the middle of the night to accompany an expectant mother in labour pains to the nearest health facility for skilled delivery, she’s not only risking her life wading in the dark on impaired vision, but she also midwifes this perilous venture acutely aware that if the mother arrives safely and brings forth a new life to the world, the satisfaction derived from this personal sacrifice cannot be bought by silver and gold.
And so, when a doctor puts up her hands in the air and leaves the profession for others to also try their best, it marks the beginning of the end of humanity – and with it, the death of the Kenyan society, as we know it.
The death of a single doctor in a third world country should be a cause for national inquest, considering the depth of resources needed and length of time spent in training one. A doctor that dies, by suicide, at 27, due to aggravated mental health compounded by the toxicity at the workplace, should have sparked a chain reaction at the Ministry of Health with those on the line of fire owning up and stepping down. The fact that it hasn’t even caused a ripple in the pool goes a long way in showing how numb the government has become to the plight of those standing in the gap between life and death.
The healthcare workplace, by its dictionary definition, was designed to be an environment where life is brought up not taken away. All healthcare workers – regardless of station in life or specialty in training – have the professional right to a safe and healthy working environment, where both physical and mental wellbeing is not only protected and promoted, but also periodically reviewed for signs and symptoms before the point of no return.
Sustainable healthcare model
A healthy workplace environment not only saves the country the thinly-spread resources it could’ve used to replace those departing the profession for peace for peace of mind, it also inches closer to the gold standard recommended for a sustainable healthcare model that works.
Back in the day, when life was cheap and President William Ruto was still in primary school, the medical profession was widely regarded as the zenith of personal achievement. Entry into medical school was similar to the proverbial camel going through the eye of a needle.
Parents bent backwards to encourage their children to join this professional nobility, including liquidating ancestral assets even at the risk of sparking family feud. When the sweat paid off and the admission letter finally arrived at the post office box, the community within which the high achiever came from celebrated.
Things are no longer the way they used to be. Regime after another have increasingly chipped away the nobility that came with the vocation of medicine, replacing it with get-rich-quick careers.
The death of Dr Moraa adds onto the growing concern about the increasing number of Kenyan professionals openly admitting to lacking incentive to keep being patriotic to a nation which has made it its unidirectional mission to punish the virtuous and rewards the vile.
Just as Dr Moraa felt she could no longer survive in a workplace that made her feel personally isolated and professionally strained, Kenyans are currently going through the toughest mental health test living under a government that approaches public policy with half-heartedness and regards public opinion as mere nuisance.
Once upon a time, a hyena came across a stone. The hyena stopped by and hailed the stone but the stone did not respond. As it passed the stone, the hyena turned around and said, ‘Even if you have not responded, you have heard’.
