It’s about 5 am, I am in the pharmacy call room napping, I hear a knock.
“ Daktari ni emergency harakisha”
Am up and in less than 30 seconds listening.
The Nursing officer proceeds, “Tulikua tumemdischarge jana but sasa ameanza kubleed profusely. As she writes on the S11, I ask how many of the Tranexamic Acid ampoules(It’s a drug used to quicken how fast the blood clots so as to stop bleeding) she needs. As I give it to her she is already on her heels back to the ward as she mumbles how she needs to get vitu za kuresuscitate huyo patient…..
On a side note, God bless that nurse. Her concern and mercy for that patient was so palpable. In another world I would have shed a tear.
As she leaves my sleep and drowsiness goes with her . A mixture of hope that all will be well and the imminent possibility of death begin to race in my mind.
My mind walks through the week. Some few days ago while speaking to the casualty nurse she goes like. “Doc leo tumepack mmoja, jana tulipack watatu”.
“Izeni sana. It must be tough.”
She goes like “tumezoea.” However, the intonation and the body language all suggest kutozoea. It is more like yes I have lost those four, but I know I may lose many more and I am not sure how to daily face those challenges. Saying nimezoea probably helps me crawl to the next assignment. I look at her, she looks back. We have a weird silence and I proceed with my work. But that statement gets into my head.
A few minutes or an hour before the nursing officer with the bleeding patient came in, I had a lady patient that got me boiling with rage. It was a rape case and she needed some post exposure prophylaxis to prevent HIV and emergency pills to stop conception. She was crying for pain medicines. She had a dislocated joint courtesy of the violence meted on her by her perpetrators. Why do people still do certain things?
These sad tales on life are quite common place. There are however stories of hope and love that abound too in this pavements.
On a random call with your good doctor Dr. Nobert Rakiro, he made a statement that has been boomeranging in my head.
“Do not let religion dehumanize you.”
In this context he was making reference to the parable of the Good Samaritan and how the whole perspectives on religion had messed up their hearts, to a point that the most pious of them were the least concerned of the plight of humanity and its aches.
My mind has been much on the dehumanization than the religion bit.
My context of work and the many other places we find ourselves in can dehumanize. A banker probably shows some metered level of mercy to loan defaulters, even if a sickness is what crippled the venture that would repay that loan. Auctioneers are on another level. Our police forces, our teachers who seemed to believe every failing in class was definitely subsequent to laziness and indiscipline…..
How does one keep their humanity alive in the hospital context? How do you get a proper balance between being rational and emotional such that none impedes professionalism? How do we keep our hearts in touch with the realities of those we are serving while being of great help to them? How do you inject hope into the patients while you yourself at times cannot see a medically plausible reason to be hopeful? How do you daily re calibrate yourself to be the best version of yourself especially emotionally?
By Dr. Njenga Muiruri.