Day in the Hospital

I was feeling very down, loss of energy and strength. The previous day I had gone to the chemist and bought some medicine. They didn’t feel like they made any change to my body but the hospital was my last option in my mind. The fee was much and I was broke by then. 

It was already evening but nothing changed. It was time to swallow my ego and thought of poverty in me. I dressed up and headed out. With the fund I had in hand I couldn’t afford to pay for the fare all the way to the hospital. I walked half the journey till I got tired. The remaining half I alighted a PSV. I’m at the gate of the hospital and I’m wondering whether I really need to go to the hospital. I’m I really that sick? Will I receive any different medicine from the one I got from the chemist? I’m already at the gate why waste the energy going back empty.

I pay for the consultation fee and told to wait at the entrance of the doctor’s office. The line has got about fifty people in waiting. Is there a day that the hospital lacks people? Ambulance siren catches our attention. The nurses bring the stretcher in a hurry. A man is removed from the back of the ambulance with a bleeding leg. The neighbour slashed his leg with a panga due to conflict of land issues. What happened to humanity? Is there a day when my son will one day ask me what is war? A day when the news will go throughout without any bad news? I have a dream of such a day coming to be true.

My phone keeps me busy all through as I wait for my turn. It almost twenty minutes and I’m half way the line. Nurses come in and out of the office some pleasing to the eye and others average. Doctors move up and down rushing from one ward to another. No one looks happy with life. I’m yet to see a smile one someone’s face. Its from tears, anger, furious, frustration to others being bored. Children made noises everywhere, screaming up and down the corridors. The hospital is one place you find all sort of people. From the rich to the poor, young and old to men and women. Sickness and health favours no one.

“NUMBER 1169?” A woman from inside the doctor’s room screams.

That’s me. I had in for the office. The sound didn’t much the person I expected. My expectations were a woman, only to find a young lady with spectacles with a mini dress. I stated my symptoms and she noted down some notes and handed me a thermometer and asked me to put it on my armpit. Five minutes later she had known my temperature. “Follow me”, she said. I’m yet to find a doctor with a good handwriting. I guess its in their genes. We had to the laboratory and she asked me to wait outside. Few minutes later i was called in. I was done some tests and we headed back to the office and awaited. Currently I’m curious what she doing behind the closed curtain. She comes out wearing gloves on her hands. She takes out a syringe from one of the drawers on her desk.

“Drop your trousers”

“Say what?”

“Nimesema uteremshe suruali”.

Let it remain a mystery what happened later. 

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