CIKU'S BEEFS: What’s wrong with our doctors, Ruth Odinga?

Get well soon, Deputy Governor Ruth Odinga. I hope your leg is better. The governor broke her leg and thought it fit to travel all the way to the UK for “specialised” treatment. It seems, in the eyes of the deputy governor, a broken leg is something far too complex for our local doctors to deal with. That, and the fact that she wanted an orange plaster (Cord party colours) and these “aesthetics” are worthy of a plane ride. I’m not sure whether this trip is being paid for with public funds (the journalist who broke the story did not bother to ask), but something tells me she did not fork out a shilling for it.

Even assuming that she did, public officials who dash out of the country for the smallest of ailments need to ask themselves if they think they are better than those they serve. If your boss — the electorate — regularly visits local hospitals, how can you,  the employee, think that those same facilities are not good enough for you?

Besides, if you were serious about  receiving top-notch medical treatment, going to India would have made more sense. They are the best and most affordable, much cheaper than a private hospital here.

You could have even said that you were saving taxpayers some money. But saying that you are in India doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? The colonial mentality is alive and well.

Why do blacks have an inferiority complex? I studied in the UK and can tell you that most of the Englishmen I met were not very bright. They have good doctors and they have bad doctors, just like anywhere else in the world, including here. Inhaling English air will not make you have a miraculous recovery.

Makes you wonder what the Brits think of us. Imagine the doctors and nurses treating the governor and the tales they tell when they go home in the evening. “You want to visit Kenya? Hell no! What if we fall and break a leg? No hospitals there…”

Our leaders should become more responsible. You won’t see Safaricom boss Bob Collymore using an Airtel line or EABL boss Jane Karuku drinking a Summit lager from Keroche Breweries.

It is not rocket science to have something that can be treated locally, done here. If I were on her advisory board, I’d have told her not to even come to Nairobi and instead put some faith in the hospitals in her county. It’s only a broken leg, for heaven’s sake! Do you know that the First World War was caused by not having faith in local doctors? I’m serious.

Wilhelm II (the last German Emperor) was the eldest grandchild of Britain’s Queen Victoria. His mother had married the German heir and he was the result of their union. Due to a difficult birth, Wilhelm sustained nerve damage that left one of his arms permanently paralysed. His mother convinced herself that somehow, this could be corrected but would not allow German doctors to attend to members of her immediate family.

They might have told her Wilhelm’s condition was incurable, but instead she relied on British physicians, who would acquiesce to any request from her. She was, after all, Queen Victoria’s daughter. They subjected the poor boy to “treatments” that included electrotherapy and even a dead hare wrapped around his arm.

He was traumatised. Imagine what kind of torture that does to a young boy? His mother showed him no love, referring to him as a cripple. By the time he was Emperor, his first order of business was to take on the British Empire in a war that was fought by cousins.

They should have been the greatest of allies but turned out to be the worst of enemies. Very bizarre. The demons he fought must have been those of his mother, his cruel childhood and British doctors. Now, if only a local doctor had been allowed to treat him, we might have avoided a world war. Ponder on that, deputy governor.