When my colleagues waged cruel war against me

As mentioned before, the additional income for the hospital was assured only if the bed occupancy improved, and that was possible only if more consultants admitted their patients to the Aga Khan Hospital.

I appealed to sessional consultants because I thought they owed it to the hospital if they were elevated to the prestigious position of having paid sessions at an internationally recognised hospital.

Traditionally, Asian consultants were the majority. The Europeans were negligible and the African specialists were slowly trickling in.

Not surprisingly, Asian colleagues waged a campaign against me because they looked upon me as ‘first among equals’.

Eventually, a ‘Gang of Four’ emerged, which was hell-bent on getting rid of me from the helm and if possible from the hospital. I have often been asked who comprised the ‘Gang’.

Three of them have died so I will not desecrate their memory, but I must cite one who is alive because he inflicted the unkindest cut of all.

During the three years he worked with me, like Uriah Heep, a character created by Charles Dickens, he won my confidence and acted as the leading member of the ‘Gang’.

MISCHIEF AFOOT

The ‘Gang of Four’, named so after the Chinese gang, which wreaked havoc in the country during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, saw Dr Storrar every time he visited Nairobi and poisoned his ears against me.

Then one time blue-eyed boy turned into a devil incarnate! Finally, while I was attending a conference in connection with a teaching hospital that the Aga Khan was building in Karachi, the ‘Gang’ wrote a letter against me, collected signatures of all the consultants and sent it to the headquarters.

The consultants, who were forced to sign the letter, told me when I returned from Karachi, but I thought that in the interest of natural justice, I would be shown the letter and be given an opportunity to rebut all the points raised.

Instead, on July, 13, 1978, like a ghost in the night, Dr Storrar arrived in my office unexpected and unannounced. Usually, he would inform me beforehand and I would book him at Muthaiga Country Club and send the hospital car to take him there.

But on that occasion, he sprang a surprise on me. Marie with her feminine intuition smelt a rat despite being on oxygen in the hospital for a severe chest infection, and she was convinced that mischief was afoot.

Dr Storrar sat silently as if lost for words and was reticent about what brought him to Nairobi suddenly.

REPLACED

He muttered something about my surgical practice and administration being incompatible and asked me to be in Sir Eboo’s office at noon the next day to discuss the issue further.

I rushed to attend my Rotary lunch meeting at the New Stanley Hotel, where I was Sergeant-at-Arms, which involved making a ‘witty’ speech and collecting fines from Rotarians for charity.

The speech was a success in spite of what happened immediately before, judging by the amount in fines I collected.

At Sir Eboo’s office the next day, in front of Dr Storrar and Michael Curtis, I was informed that in the new policy, it was stipulated that the administrator of a hospital must be full-time and qualified in hospital management.

From then matters went downhill and I was succeeded by Dr Mackinnon, a urologist from Canada, as executive director from January 1, 1979.

My three weekly sessions in the hospital were ended on February 28, 1981 by a curt letter written by Sir Eboo.

It was 20 days short of my 20-year of service and this meant the end of an era for me. Like all such events, it was ill-timed because, shortly, I was due to pay huge university fees for Jenny at Reading University and Jan’s fees at Bearwood College, both in the UK.

But like a phoenix, I rose from the ashes, thanks to my surgical practice, which sustained me and helped me recover from the only setback in my professional life.

ASPIRATIONS ATTAINED

I had vacated my consulting rooms in IPS Building and after a short stay in Electricity, Esso and Kimathi House, I eventually settled down on the first floor of the Laboratory Wing of Nairobi Hospital allotted to consultants.

It was a walking distance from Kenyatta Hospital, where I taught medical students.

In addition to break the hospital even, I had three other aspirations, which became my passions, happily attained after I left the hospital.

These were building a doctor’s plaza, a decent private wing and make it a teaching institution. The first two were interconnected and also increased revenue because they provided captive consumers to utilise the outpatient services and fill the beds.

When I floated the idea of doctors’ plaza on the premises in 1975, my critics thought I was mad. But in time, all private hospitals built offices for doctors who patronised them.

My desire to build the first, which was delayed by bureaucracy. Our private wing was converted from the nurses’ home, but I had a vision of en suite private rooms, where upper class, heavily insured patients, company executives and diplomats would prefer to go.

Finally, my biggest passion — teaching. I was already attached as an honorary consultant to Kenyatta Hospital and honorary senior lecturer at the University, but wanted Aga Khan Hospital to be a part of the teaching complex and expose the medical students to vastly different pathology like gallstones, appendicitis, duodenal ulcer and heart attacks, diseases associated with affluence.

BATTLE LOST

They were not seen at Kenyatta, where Kaposi’s Sarcoma, Burkitt’s lymphoma, Post-nasal carcinoma, dysentery, diseases arising from poverty, malnourishment and infections filled the beds.

When Prof Wasunna went on his sabbatical, Prof Awori was in charge and agreed to send a batch to Aga Khan Hospital once a week.

But when Prof Wasunna returned, he stopped the arrangement on the basis that he did not want his students exposed to ‘mercenary medicine’. I did not fight anymore because by then, I had lost my own battle.