AUGUST 24TH, 2016
Dear diary,
A trip to the wards is always an eye opener; first as to the
degree of suffering people undergo and then as to the degree of blessings God
has showered on me by granting me good health.
Since my last posting to the trauma lab, I had been
frequenting the ward to dispatch results and each time I did, I’d walk down the
long corrider about a third of its length filled with patients and patients
relatives most of whom the hospital had become a home. Their waiting eyes would
feast on passersby till the next passer by came along to inherit the eye feast.
Some had started selling recharge cards in a bid to meet the needs of other
patients as well as a need to keep busy making a few bucks when not running
around for tests, payments and other requests heaped on them.
Today, as I made my way up to the first floor to make a
dispatch, a sorry sight greeted my eyes and transported me back to 2002 when
the hospital too was our home. My immediate elder brother had been sick for
months; He had recently been diagnosed of glucose 6 phosphate dehydrogenase
deficiency a disease condition that caused him to react to almost everything
most notably malaria drugs. Mother had sat by his side day and night and
tendered to his every needs, exchanging places only once in a while with my cousin brother who would hold
on for her till she came back. She frequently complained of back pains and
mosquito bites but what could a 10 year old who slept on her bed every night
know about back aches and chronic mosquito bites? I would happily visit my brother
in the childrens ward and retire later to the play ground where I would play
with other kids on the jangulover. My
brother would sometimes join us on the play ground and somehow, he managed to
make everybody love him. The doctors assured us that he would be okay and true
to their words, He recuperated and off
we went back to our home.
Back to present, the people I saw beneath the stair case
were undoubtedly patients’ relatives. A wrapper was spread on the floor besides
cooking utensils and clothing. The look on her face seemed to be that of a stationary
sadness… that of one who knew she had a bad situation but had somehow come to
accept it. In her eyes, were pains and in them lacked the hope I saw in the
eyes of others who had relatives in the hospital. As I walked up the stairs, I
wondered how they managed to foot all the bills.
I was back at the Federal Medical Centre in 2002 when mumy
asked my cousin to go and withdraw her entire salary. Back then, it had been
huge and she rarely touched it save for a few personal expenses. She would go
to onitcha once in a while and buy a lot of clothes and other goodies for us
but here she was, ordering that her salary be brought to be squandered in the
hospital
”Pay N9000 for two
pints of blood….” She started to say and then I marveled at how much she had to
spend sitting down at a spot. “My salary is finished” She had said the next day
and my heart went out to her.
I was sadder even for my brother for he had to endure the
pains from within and without…the needles and the drugs. His breathe smelled of
drugs. The doctors had promised he would be fine. Yes they had; what they didn’t
tell us was that he was going to die months after his discharge from the
hospital. What the doctors didn’t tell us was that it didn’t matter how much we
spent, He was going to die anyway. But looking back, I wonder what the
difference would have been had we known that he would die. We would have still
tried our best not just merely to save
him, but to convince ourselves that we had tried our best for him.
What marveled me was that most of the patients relatives who
had stayed in the hospital for two years and above were low income earners,who
had little or no qualifications to work in government establishments but
somehow, they found a way to foot their bills, somehow, they pushed through the
obstacles of lack and stood on a pinnacle so very high. They had found a
pinnacle…the pinnacle of HOPE.
