BY:
FAUZIATU ADAM
I have been battling with sore throat for the
past days and my special someone, Abiyarawe
(I will tell you about him someday) got me some lozenges and malaria drugs to help
relieve the discomfort. Most Ghanaians are self-licensed doctors. We are born
to self-medicate and that was what I did.
On
Sunday evening, I returned from my sister’s child-naming ceremony and packed my
needs for school even though I was still battling the sore throat with its
sidekick, headache. Even worse, I had lost my voice and was coughing nonstop. I
asked my sister-in-law to give me one of her chilled bizap (sobolo) to go with
the jollof rice we brought home from the ceremony.
After
that, I prayed and washed down, all set for a group discussion on campus
because I had presentation on Cognitive Dissonance
with my group members on Monday.
I
told myself that the pain would not stop me from presenting on Monday, so ‘it’ better
advice itself because I was not going to barge.
All
of a sudden, I felt weird. “What was happening? What was wrong? Why am I
feeling this way? I kept questioning myself. My brother’s wife had already
started sweeping the room. I looked at her and started crying. I then asked her
to accompany me to the hospital.
“I
feel weird Summayya. I don’t know what is wrong with me. My chest hurts”, I
lamented. She dropped the broom and we left for the hospital. I had a Ridge Hospital
folder and that was the place I felt I could get the best medical treatment that
evening.
All
I could do at that moment was to cry and couldn’t help but wonder and question what
was happening to me. “Why am I feeling weird, is this my last day on earth, how
was my mum going cope? And my Abiyarawe,
what was he going to do?” and all the nonsense that many people thought about when they probably smell the end is near
when it’s just sickness controlling them. (Right now, I think it was common
sense that left my head.)
As
we got closer to the Ridge hospital, now the Greater Accra Regional Hospital,
the driver couldn’t help but to the praise the president for the hospital’s
facelift with Summayya and I agreeing to what he said.
“Somebody
will vote for John Mahama because of what he has done at this hospital,” the driver
said.
We
finally got to the hospital and went
straight to the Out Patient Department (OPD) where we met a man behind the counter
who asked what my problem was. I told him how I was feeling and he directed me
outside the clinic where a green container was. I later realized it was an
emergency ward. I entered and greeted a nurse who had a male companion.
Man:
What is wrong with you? (He didn’t even offer me a sit)
Me:
(struggling to speak because I had lost my voice) I am not feeling well. I feel
so much pain in my chest when I cough. I have sore throat and feel pain in my
neck. I am just not well.
Nurse:
Are you asthmatic?
Me:
No please (‘God forbid’ I rebuked it in my mind)
Man:
Are you breathing well?
Me:
Yes please
Man:
Can you walk?
Me:
Yes please
Man:
then we can’t treat you. Go home and come back tomorrow morning because we
treat only emergency cases.
Me:
Am I not emergency enough? How sure are you that I will survive in the morning?
When we left that place, we saw a gentleman,
in the symbolic doctor’s overcoat, speaking to a pregnant woman and a gentleman
who we later found out was her husband. Sumayya approached him and told him
what had happened in there.
The
doctor explained to us the protocol at the hospital after chiding me for not reporting
earliest.
“At
this time, we only deal with ambulance cases or people who cannot walk”, he
added.
He
asked Summayya to take me to the Adabraka polyclinic where I will get medical
attention. I just couldn’t control my tears. All I could do was to cry, cough
and wonder what was really happening. At least they should give me something to
ease the pain.
We
got to the polyclinic which was like three minutes’ drive away from the Ridge
Hospital. We met a nurse and two gentlemen. They directed us to a yellow
container where an ‘angry-looking man asked if I had health insurance. I nodded.
He
didn’t appear pleased and began shouting that he was in a hurry and didn’t have
time to waste on me. The man then took some records of me and handed a hospital
folder to me. He then directed me to the OPD for the nurse to take my vitals
including weight, temperature and blood pressure.
I think the nurse was angry that we came to
the hospital at that time of the night, because she was not very friendly.
Again,
we met the pregnant woman and her husband I mentioned earlier in my Ridge
Hospital encounter. The nurse later informed us that the doctor would soon be
with us and that he was at the ward checking on other patients. After waiting
for two hours at the mercy of unfriendly mosquitoes, the nurse realized there
was no doctor around. I asked Summayya to enquire what was going on because I
had lost my voice and was too tired to get up and talk. Then the
other two gentlemen came and I heard them murmuring that the doctor had left
and the doctor on duty had not arrived yet. Interestingly, the night nurses and
the doctor were supposed to report at 8p.m. It was past 10 p.m. and nobody was
telling us anything.
I heard one Dr Fynn was supposed to report for
night duty but they didn’t have his number and it doesn’t look like either of
the night nurses were even reporting to duty that night. I started imagining
the strikes these people embark on, do these people really swear an oath to
save lives, who supervises the polyclinics, who coordinates what happens in the
hospital, do they even evaluate performances at these public clinics? The story would have been different at the
private clinic for sure.
A
cleaner, who I mistook for the head of the nurses, appeared, and I heard the
nurse who took my vitals lamenting about the nurses who were supposed to report
to duty and an assistant doctor who was supposed to report to duty but were nowhere
to be found.
I
heard the two gentlemen complaining to cleaner that the assistant doctor liked traveling
during weekends and that she should be advised to desist from that habit. I
just lied there weeping and listening too. The nurse who took our vitals went and
changed into casual attire and left without telling us anything.
We were just left in the hands of a cleaner.
The woman realizing it was dangerous to leave patients like that came and
informed us that the doctor wasn’t coming now and that we could come back very
early in the morning. Summayya ask her what if I don’t survive till the morning. She is an older woman, may be in her
fifties and experienced too. That was why I thought she was the senior nurse.
She advised me to sip warm water and salt and then comeback in the morning.
Mine was to pray, I survive this pain till morning.
I
don’t know what the protocol is at public hospitals. But I know for major
hospitals and polyclinics, they worked 24 hours. The fact that I was able to
walk doesn’t mean I will be alive till the next morning. That is what people go
through almost every day at hospital clinics.
#All lives matter.
The writer is a student of the Department of
Communications Studies, University of Ghana, Legon.
Email: adamfauzia@gmail.com
