The true blessings of health

The word health is used in so many contexts, mostly taken for granted, and it’s only when sickness knocks on the door that we understand the true blessings of health .

I recently travelled to Kuwait to attend to my mother who is going through a health concern , the period I spent next to her hospital bed was probably one of the most challenging episodes I have experienced, and just when I thought she was about to be discharged, the doctors decided on an extended stay.

This is a good government hospital that costs way less than private ones, with access to medications that are not easily found in pharmacies outside the hospital, however, as most government departments, they are short staffed, hence the need for a companion for the patient, and this became my role.

With no real comparison, I remembered the first time I went to Mulago hospital to visit a friend who had an accident, the casualty ward was like a war zone, as both outpatients and accident victims were waiting for their turn in the corridors, this graphic scene left its mark on me for a very long time.

When I entered the ward with inpatients, this large common room , barely with some partitions, there was a mattress by every bedside, some other necessities were also stacked in a corner, all seemed in place to cater for the patient and the patient’s companion.

In this hospital in Kuwait, most rooms are with two beds, and who will be your next door neighbour remains quite unpredictable , this was exactly the case with our first room where an elderly lady was admitted for a procedure but she categorically refused any collaboration with the medical team, so the result was a screaming match with the staff and her poor helper, while her children were no where to be seen.

Eventually we shifted to another room, and here was another story, a story of a young handicapped girl with serious mental and physical challenges, at the age of 33, she has already passed the stage of life expectancy for people the same as her condition , she was admitted with a serious lung infection, her mother was crying non stop, and no matter how much everyone tried to convince her that this maybe a relief from her sufferings, it didn’t work, there were endless phone calls, visitors who sat around her bed, each giving their own opinion about the situation, totally oblivious of the fact that she needed a quitter environment to heal and certainly one free from the germs they brought with them from the outside world.

One interesting thing in this hospital is the presence of helping staff in all sections, people call them hospital googles, they know each corner, everyone and can even push through your paperwork without waiting in the queue, of course there is no free lunch, you are expected to be generous with them!