You decide to go to Muhimbili; it’s at your own risk. People don’t seem to care down there!! They have seen almost everything... your story will most certainly not be the first. People down there are so used to seeing dead bodies that they are never worried about sick persons. It’s as if they have made it a short-cut to heaven!
While there you can expect anything and everything except good healthcare service. You can expect anything from gloomy faces, to long explanations as to why you cannot be treated, to insults, to your body being made an experimental device for people who are not sure with their professional practices, to denial of service...and all the things your mom told you not to do to others.
Yes, I’ve been there and I was there. I have seen people grouching of pain; I have talked to people staying there for days without any medical attention; I have heard nurses insulting patients and telling them to go to hell, and I have witnessed people suffering one thing and getting treatment for another thing... you name it, I have seen; I have heard it all.
This day, in question I took my niece who was in excruciating pain – something that looked to me, and probably anyone else who still values life, to be serious and an emergency case. This young lady was crying all the way to our one and the only national hospital.
After being shown one building after the other we eventually came to the main reception lobby. Right there, we encountered a gloomy face of a lady whose body language and gestures implied that she was pissed off by our unannounced visit to her territory. She spent a good half hour explaining to us why we were wrong to be at Muhimbili. She then called someone by the title “sister” and explained with all negativity why she thought we were gravely wrong. The sister, however, decided to break the trend of conventional procedures. She took vital signs and took our patient to a doctor.
Not being so sure what was done by the doctor, we were informed that she would be admitted prior to which we needed to pay all the necessary costs starting with admission cost/fee. We did.
Our intent was initially to go to fast-track. So we requested the possibility of our patient being taken there. We had to finish some initial procedures at the regular ward before anything called fast-track would come into the picture.
Then came a four hour wait while somebody was searching for a bed, that we later came to find out that it was actually not a bed, but a mattress to be used on the floor! After over four hours we moved from the main reception lobby to Kibasila Ward. There at around 20 hrs we met a pair of nurses who threw blames on us with all their might.
They said we were very wrong to be there and they had a choice to take us in or not. I told them we had already paid for admission. Whoever made us pay the admission fee was believed to be a Muhimbili doctor. Why then should a nurse shoot us with blames? At that point even my patient stopped crying and started marvelling.
Almost always I write about the quality of our healthcare, someone tells me that I probably expect too much from our hospitals. But to any stretch of imagination, does asking for good service expecting too much, while I pay non-negotiable taxes? I should probably say that I’m not done with healthcare until Muhimbili stops killing people carelessly.
Muhimbili staff wants to use tricks to make every service look like a very complicated one, so that when you get it, it is because you are very lucky!
Back to our ordeal: after everything was said and done that night, I was advised that the doctor would go around later in the night and some testing would be done after which I would then be able to transfer my patient the following morning. It looked like something was starting to unfold. So I went home and retired for the night.
Come 6 o’clock the following morning I was right at the reception desk of the Kibasila ward 9 where I left my patient with anticipation of better news. Guess what? I was wrong! Deadly so. Since the time I left, my patient had not received any medicine, or any tests. I was told that an Intern went around and wrote something with a comment “to be confirmed by his senior.”
So I asked three questions: When would the senior go around.... for God’s sake none had the answer. Then I asked when would the tests be done....for God’s sake no one knew.
And what about medicine... same difference!
At that point I asked to speak to a supervisor or nurse manager. The nurse on duty told me that there was none. I insisted and told them that there might have been someone who would know an answer to at least one of the questions. She then told me that the only person I would speak to is the nurse in-charge of the block, who was not there. I inquired for her name. The nurse on the desk told me that she didn’t know her. I was stunned! I told her I am used to seeing people wear ID Cards in most institutions, why was it different at Muhimbili (both the nurses on the reception desk didn’t have theirs either)?. Were people concealing anything?
At this juncture it was as if somebody was testing my patience; but I was afraid that she was pushing me to the borders of sanity.
Anyway I eventually saw the nurse. My first request was to know her name because people didn’t seem to know her. She said that I didn’t necessarily need her name. I asked why. She asked me mine. I gave her mine with an appendix of an explanation that mine didn’t matter at Muhimbili.
After a few minutes of questions and answers session I told her that I could continue without her name. We continued and I didn’t get any help until I went to higher authority. At this stage at least I found a person who sympathized with us and actually advised us that we were misled and most of what happened was wrong...!
We eventually moved to the so-called fast-track. But there were no tests except one chest x-ray, which left us very surprised trying to connect a foot problem and a chest x-ray. When inquired it to the nurse, she said that was the doctor A...’s order. Later on, the same doctor told our patient that she needed no x-ray ...they are just a bunch of strange people here…, he claimed.
My question is: how many people can go to that dimension to get service at Muhimbili? No wonder we just hear people dying there carelessly!
I’m not very sure what the authority does about the situation at MNH and other hospitals. But it obviously needs serious attention. We cannot celebrate death sentences to albino killers while just looking at hundreds of other people dying carelessly at Muhimbili. We cannot continue to incur costs and fly people to India, South Africa, Nairobi and elsewhere for something that we can equally do by just a change of attitude. We cannot label every death at Muhimbili as God’s will to hide accountability. No, we can’t... somebody needs to do something as soon as possible!