My wife returned from the clinic yesterday
sad. I mean, really sad!
“Do you remember that slim new nurse at the
hospital?” she asked.
There are a lot of nurses at the hospital
and I know some of them. But a new slim nurse? I honestly could not remember
her. And I have tried since yesterday to recollect her face, but I just do not
have any inkling. Well, that is beside the point.
“What about the slim new nurse?” I asked
her.
“Matron said she is dead.”
I was taken aback. Dead ke?
“What killed her?”
“You know she was pregnant.”
Pregnant? I did not even know her, so I
could not have known she was pregnant. But what got me really worried was the
fact that in all of the history of this particular hospital nobody had died
there, not even during childbirth.
The hospital is owned by a church that is
widely believed to be the fastest growing church in the world at the moment. At
least, on paper it is owned by the church. In reality, I learnt it receives
little funding from its owners. So it is, in the main, a self-sustaining
project.
I do not belong to that denomination. In
fact, I knew about the hospital only after my wedding. My wife said she had
always dreamt of having her children in that hospital, so I really did not have
any choice when she was pregnant with our first child. But in all honesty, they
have turned out to be quite good, although sometimes expensive.
Our own church runs a standard hospital,
alright. But when it comes to serious medical issues, I would rather my wife
and children seek help from this other hospital. I know a few of the doctors
and as a result of my relationship with them over time, we now relate on
first-name basis. I can call them up at any time of the day and expect to be
attended to without any delay. And a lot of my wife’s friends right now are
people she met at the anti-natal classes. It is on record that some terribly
bad delivery cases get referred to the hospital from some teaching hospitals.
So how did one of their own, a nurse, die
during childbirth?
“Matron said she was pregnant with twins.
And because of her frame, they felt she could not deliver them on her own, so
they recommended a caesarean.”
“So she died during the operation.”
“No, she did not even agree to have the operation.
Matron said she applied for her maternity leave when her Expected Delivery Date
(EDD) was drawing close and disappeared.”
Of course, the matron tried to reach her,
to find out what was happening. I learnt she said her parents wanted her to
come to the village where she would be delivered of the babies without any
operation. The concerned matron sent people to plead with her to have a rethink,
but she refused to change her mind.
Well, not long after, her husband called
the hospital to say that she died in the village…during childbirth.
I have tried since yesterday to imagine
what would make a nurse, a fairly educated lady at that, throw away her life
just like that.
It is true that a caesarean is extremely
expensive in the hospital where she worked. But that is for outsiders. I learnt
as a member of staff, she did not have to pay any medical bills as she was
entitled to free medical treatment. So why did she choose to kill herself? I am
sorry if I sound a bit judgmental, but I just do not get it. And to think that
there are probably millions like her out there who will tread that same path.
And this is the twenty-first century. Considering the efforts of the
government, private organisations and international bodies to ensure health for
all, how on earth do you get an unwilling people to begin to seek medical help in the right
places? I just do not get it!
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