from Tebiti Oisaboke
The following article has been recommended
The death of an ?ordinary person?
[http://www.nation.co.ke/News/The+death+of+an+ordinary+person/-/1056/1264142/-/141d0ns/-/index.html]
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This is really a very powerful and heart touching story. Dorothy was indeed a very charismatic and courageous Kenyan who fought her illness with resilient compassion. Special thanks goes to Ms. Lucy Hannah for bringing Dorothy’s story to the public fora. There is absolutely NO doubt that Sister Dorthy was failed by the state and left for death. What a sad death. Its painful to read stories such as Dorthy’s where the public health providers don’t bother to provide basic nursing services for their patients. How in the world could nurses be sleeping their nights away as if they are in their bedrooms while on duty? Do we have supervisors in Kenyan hospitals? Dorothy was treated like a dog in her own country yet she probably worked hard all her life, paid taxes and yet Uncle Sam turned his back on her at the time she needed him most. Most poor people like Dorothy are the largest tax contributors to Kenya’s Uncle Sam kitty and when they need the slightest help, all access doors are shut before them. These rich dudes never pay anything towards the tax revenues yet they amass all the benefits they can grab from the state Exchequer’s office. Its high time that the Kenyan government start paying disability allowances to certain classes of people who qualify such as HIV victims, old and frail, disabled etc so that they too may afford tp purchase health care coverage in the private healthcare facilities. If the hospitals are too congested to take care of all the sick people who need long time care, allow people to open nursing homes to care for these category of people and give them social security benefits. A few months ago, there was another devastating story from Kisii-Kenya where by a mother who has a mentally ill child who has since grown into a youngman now, was chained in his village hut all his life for fear that he might either wonder away, hurt someone or kill himself. When he was discovered, the newsmen visited his home where they found him covered with his own defecation waste and urine. I could not fanthom how he managed to live in such pathetic conditions today when his own local village chief was aware of his “wanting” condition. The chief could have raised an alarm in conjunction with his local MP and sough help for this guy. He was chained like a tithered animal awaiting the butcher’s knife all his life! God forbid. This is human abuse in other countries. Open group homes to care for the mentally ill citizens and don’t let poor mothers struggle alone to raise their children helplessly. I know this has been going on for long in Kenya whereby when a family member becomes completely confined in the hospital bed due to critical illness, most of the time it becomes a FT job for family members to nurse their kin while the state paid health care providers do nothing. Why does Uncle Sam extract taxes from our meager resources yet we don’t get our taxes worthy free state provided services? Ms. Hannah says it very clearly than I can, that our dishonorable politicians behave like a cottage or a bunch of Mafia professionals and NOT our human rights defenders. How long are we gonna tolerate this nonsense? We have been shot changed for many years and its just about time for all of us to say, enough is enough in 2012. She hit hard on her last paragraph as quoted here below
“It reminded me that although Dorothy always referred to herself as “an ordinary person”, she was clearly not.
By her own account, she was illiterate and poorly educated, yet she was articulate and wise about subjects that are taboo for so many — rape, HIV, and forgiveness.
It also reminded me that the fate of every — poor — citizen rests in the hands of their government.
Dorothy had been failed at every turn in her life: in the 2007 election; in personal security; as an internally displaced person; as a person living with HIV; in restitution; as a victim of sexual violence; in loss of livelihood; in legal justice and human dignity; and finally, in a fatally corrupt and inefficient institution – the health service.
But in death, she had taught me one last thing. I finally understood exactly what is meant by a “failing State”. Dorothy died of failure of State. Dorothy was buried on Saturday”.
RIP and may God bless your soul sister Dorothy. You have taught us a lot of what it means to be poor person in Kenya