Our casual attitude to life alarming

There are many issues of interest that are constantly in the minds of Kenyans.

Take this matter of ‘useless’ university courses that is definitely in the minds of students, parents and even lecturers.

We hear complaints from Cabinet secretaries and government departments that the funds they were given is not enough.

All these and others are matters that should occupy our minds, not to mention the issue of corruption and possible changes to the Constitution.

There are a million other issues that affect us as a nation and which call for serious reflection.

There was a subject that came up early last week and would probably pass in the minds of many as insignificant but which said a lot about the way some of us think and what values guide us as we go about our business.

DEATHS

On Monday morning there was an item in one of the dailies that talked about 60 infants having died in the main hospital of my own county, Kiambu.

Later that day I heard a news item on the same topic in one FM radio stations. I simply could not believe what I was hearing.

Both the governor and his medical man were playing down the issue.

What both of them were alluding to is that 60 infants are not so many as to cause too much worry.

After all, according to them, 2,000 babies had been born in that hospital in the last two months.

This is the main county medical facility and 60 infants die in it but the governor and his medical man do not think that it is a big deal.

SENSITIVITY

Let us get a little more serious. In my understanding, one person, even if it is an infant, dying is one too many.

For these ‘gentlemen’ to think that 60 is not many is a pointer to the rot in our society.

Any society that treats matters to do with human life in such a casual manner is a society that has no fundamental guiding values.

All that we do has to be based on how much value we attach to human life. The men who thought that 60 infants are not many came across as people who do not care at all.

Even when we talk about big issues like corruption, the foundation of a corrupt society is to be found in the lack of proper value systems for humanity.

It all begins with how much value we attach to universal human existence.

To think that the people we refer to as our leaders are the ones who think that 60 infants dying in a medical facility is nothing to worry about means that we as a society are in big trouble.

Fr Wamugunda is the dean of students and sociology lecturer at the University of Nairobi. [email protected]