I am an expert at dispensing hope

I think I will start referring to myself as Dr Asunta. Before you scream, “con artist!” please read on.

A few days ago, I called Lydia to find out how her 40-year-old daughter is doing. The last time I visited Lydia, who lives in North Eastern Kenya, her daughter was bedridden. Lydia is 60-plus, I came to know her and the plight of her daughter through another one of her daughters who lives in Malindi.

“We have a very sick sister who urgently needs your intervention, otherwise we’ll lose her soon,” the sister in Malindi told me over the phone. “She was recently discharged from hospital, and we’re afraid she does not have long to live,” she added.

Same script, different client

My intention was to delegate this case as I do hundreds of others – there is a limit to how much one person can do, after all. When I called Lydia later to find out her sister was doing, she was even more urgent in demanding my visit. She completely refused to give me the “diagnosis” over the phone. She only told me her daughter was very sick and the hospital had discharged her, just like that.

I was in a dilemma. With donor-funded programs, each region is funded for specific programs. North Eastern is not covered by KENWA, which meant all costs could not be charged on any project that KENWA was running.

This meant I was to foot the bill for the North Eastern field trip. It was that time of the month. I was broke, but all the same, I told Peter, my eldest son, to drive me to North Eastern to see a client. The way I put it, I did not leave any room for him to object.

Charm offensive

I took a doctor friend with me, as well as medicine. My “pro bono” doctor friend did not mind that I was going to all these lengths to visit a client I had never seen, at the behest of relatives I had never met.

She understood what my job entails, and for that, I was grateful.

The three of us headed to North Eastern early one morning, a journey that took us a good amount of driving through rugged terrain, not to mention the fine dust that was determined to choke us, since this area had not seen rain for ages.

Doctor without “book smarts”

On arrival, we introduced ourselves. Lydia was very excited and glad that I had made the long trip to see her daughter.

She prayed, and in her prayer, she said “ Thank you God because now that dagitari Asunta has come, my daughter will not die”.

Despite several corrections from me that I was not a doctor, she would not stop calling me doctor.  “I’m not a doctor; she’s the doctor,” I told Lydia several time, motioning to my friend. But Lydia had zero interest in the real doctor, so I had to keep repeating all the instructions my doctor friend gave.

“Doctor, do you think she will one day be self-dependent?” Lydia asked. “Yes,” I replied, dispensing the medication I’m actually trained to give: hope.

Woman of the cloth

“We’ll all do what we can humanly and humanely do, and then let God do what only He can. Should things turn for the worse, we will have no regrets because we will have done our best. Mom, the decision to live or die has never been in our hands, ours is to offer comfort and quality to the remaining days one has.”

This was not Asunta the doctors speaking, but Asunta the pastor. I was trying to ease the pain in this mother’s heart, a mother who was helplessly watching death slowly snatch her child.

I gave Lydia a few basics on home-based care, where caution was necessary and where it wasn’t. I mostly insisted on involving her daughter in all decisions concerning her.

On our way back home, Peter began to laugh and told me, “Mom, I still don’t believe that lady thought you’re a doctor, totally ignoring the actual doctor.”

Please, call me Dr Asunta.