Raila Odinga is so much part of the Kenyan fabric, and a few days without him being seen in public could raise speculation. And so it happened a few days ago. Yet rather than address emergent concerns, the Orange Democratic Movement’s excitable functionaries went ballistic against Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka and other opposition leaders, accusing them of peddling falsehoods about Raila’s health.
As blame and counter-blame were being traded, Mama Ida Odinga got ensnared in the ensuing vortex after she refuted claims that ‘baba’ was sick. However, the belated admission by Senator Oburu Oginga, Raila’s elder brother, that indeed Raila was sick and recuperating in India, has exposed the lack of social intelligence in ODM’s top hierarchy. Intellectual bankruptcy manifested in the wild chorus of condemnation by ODM leaders that addressed everything except the matter at hand.
For the record, days when governments and other authorities controlled news and gave alternative truths are long gone, consigned to the deep grave by the vibrancy of social media and highly educated populaces. Hiding the health status of a leader is an outdated practice that predates the 17th century. Leaders are human, they are not gods, and can fall sick. There is nothing to hide or get uptight about. Furtiveness as a defence fuels inimical speculation, more than candidness.
The Romans, for instance, hid the health statuses of their leaders because they believed sickness signalled the anger of the gods and revealing that a leader was sick could lead to repercussions, such as coups or assassinations. It was therefore necessary to hide such information to stop enemies from taking advantage of a leader’s vulnerability to strike. We do not live under such dispensation today.
Poignantly, Raila’s sickness and recourse to seeking treatment abroad shines the spotlight on our floundering health services, especially now that the Social Health Authority has failed to meet high public expectations. Mama Ida claimed she would have taken Raila to Migori hospital for treatment if he were sick, but no, he was flown to India. Our leaders’ lack of faith in local hospitals is telling enough; an affirmation that our public health services are wanting.
Add that to the prolonged medical workers’ strike in Kiambu County, the fact that Busia Referral Hospital lacks both an ambulance and ICU unit, and the sad reality that hospitals routinely detain dead bodies and patients unable to pay hospital bills, and the sorry state of our health services becomes clear. Falling sick in Kenya today is the shortest route to poverty. Endless overpriced medical tests in private facilities and unrealistic daily bed charges will bankrupt one as easily as a hot knife going through butter.
Unbelievably, Kiambu Governor Kimani Wamatangi recently downplayed the four-month doctors’ strike. His denials, however, only confirmed the sorry state of health services in the county. In his address to the County Assembly on the state of the county, Wamatangi boasted that more than six million people are treated in the county’s hospitals annually. With Kiambu’s population of 2,417,735 people by the 2019 population census results, these figures are not reassuring. Is everybody in Kiambu so sick they must visit a hospital at least three times a year? If half the population is sick, it makes an average of six visits to hospital annually.
This high number of patients plays squarely into claims that Kiambu hospitals lack drugs among other claims by the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentist Union. The medical workers went on strike to protest poor working conditions, shortage of doctors, delayed payment of salaries, lack of promotions and failure by the county government to remit their union dues amounting to Sh10 million.
Both tiers of government must tweak our health services. If SHA were to work as originally envisaged, it would be wonderful. The truth, however, is that the noble idea has been sabotaged by avaricious individuals to a point of failing to serve the people it was meant to serve. With only four million of the registered 26 million people paying their SHA subscriptions, there is a problem that must be remedied.
