Mr Madaga’s is a sad statement of the state of healthcare in our country

What you need to know:

  • Maj-Gen Hussein Ali, a man with a talent for pithy one-liners, once told me: “You can delegate authority but never responsibility.”
  • Fortunately, there is a man whose responsibility it is to manage healthcare in this country, to make sure hospitals have the equipment and staff to treat sick Kenyans: the Cabinet secretary for Health.
  • I do not know what kind of job description a CS has but when you have critically ill Kenyans waiting in an ambulance for nearly two days for admission, you are looking at serious failure.

Last week, I sat across a conference table from a young girl whose photo I had published, claiming she was dead.

It was the worst day of my professional life. Nation Media Group editors are bred to protect and build, not destroy, reputations. Here was a child — she looked 14 to me — whom I had killed.

There was so little we could do, so we tried to explain to her what care we had taken to check and verify the information we published.

I took no comfort at all from the fact that it was, and still is, a very complex and unfolding criminal drama.

The weight of the evidence provided by persons claiming to be family, the array of information provided in writing by the authorities, including the police, to confirm the allegations of those persons, and all the other confounding facts surrounding that case — layer upon layer of disinformation, lies, and criminal obfuscation — would probably excuse our mistakes.

RESPONSIBILITY IS PERSONAL

But I am hired to protect the reputation of the people we cover and to publish the truth, not to be conned by the police, criminals, and other folk.

Maj-Gen Hussein Ali, a man with a talent for pithy one-liners, once told me: “You can delegate authority but never responsibility.”

In my mind, all responsibility is personal. If something goes wrong in a Nation office in a far flung place, it is my fault. Because it is my duty to make sure things do not go wrong, whether I am personally dealing with the matter or it is being dealt with by a different person.

Which brings me, rather neatly, to the matter of Mr Alex Madaga, the man who spent 18 hours in an ambulance because there was no ICU bed at the Kenyatta National Hospital and because private hospitals will not admit unless you pay upfront.

KNH has pointed out a couple of facts which I am happy to take on board. First, it cannot cope. It is not provided with the resources required to provide the country with quality healthcare.

Secondly, counties have bought ambulances like they are going out of fashion. The wave of patients being delivered is way more than the hospital can care for.

WHAT IS BEING DONE?

Fortunately, there is a man whose responsibility it is to manage healthcare in this country, to make sure hospitals have the equipment and staff to treat sick Kenyans: the Cabinet secretary for Health.

I do not know what kind of job description a CS has but when you have critically ill Kenyans waiting in an ambulance for nearly two days for admission, you are looking at serious failure.

So whose fault was it that Mr Madaga was in an ambulance for nearly two days and what is being done about it?

*******

Going over some court papers, I was forcefully reminded how much I loathe wife-beaters and deadbeat dads.

Long time ago, I saw a man beating his wife outside their house. He was hitting her with a big stick on the back with all his might.

Every time he hit her, she would exhale with force in a series of hacking, but tearless sobs. That was psychic pain, the pain of a woman whose soul was being shredded. I was so sad and traumatised.

Where I come from, a real man does not raise his hand against his woman or children. He commands his home without opening his mouth, sends terror through the brood by the mere rising of his left eyebrow. I choose a different path. For a happy-go-lucky daddy like me, the worst thing that can possibly happen to me is to be feared by my family.

WEAK CHARACTERS

Wife-beaters are men of weak character; they are vile and evil. They have no self-regard and no confidence.

They draw reassurance from oppressing the weak and humiliating those over whom they have authority. The lowest grade of man is the type that strikes a woman in public and in front of children.

As a society we have allowed these fellows to thrive by looking away and pretending that it is none of our business. Protecting the weak is our business.

So let us make a deal: if you have a wife-beating employee or business associate, give them the choice to start respecting their families or lose their jobs.

Join, write to me, let us light a fire under these animals.

[email protected]. Twitter: @mutuma_mathiu