God, spare Uswaz the terror called typhoid, malaria
Nothing has lately made my life hell since having to visit the Uswaz dispensary in the wee hours, writhing and groaning and vibrating like an old tractor in pain and unsure whether I will end up being the next occupant of Muhimbili Hospital mortuary cabinets or ward beds is horrifying. You see, so long as I cannot guarantee myself to the quality of the water that goes down my throat, scooped from wells placed a couple of metres from the passport-size toilets, my life is in perpetual danger.
Imagine also that the same wells, stagnant brackish ponds and the small rivulet of very dirty water that pass behind the back window are homes to the most viscous mosquitoes Dar es Salaam has ever seen. What this means is that if I don’t die of malaria, chances are that I will die of typhoid or allied diseases.
Another unfortunate state is that anyone who works in any dispensary or hospital environment is simply known as “doctor” even if he were the embalmer of dead bodies or even the mortuary attendant. Other quacks include Lightness Ndesumbwa who started off as a housemaid and when her employer noted that she could write words like amoxil, gentamicin 2x2 (meaning 2 tablets in the morning and two in the evening) on tiny envelops and that she could differentiate medicines by colour, promoted her to work in his “chemist shop.”
The agony is that my Uswaz “doctor” is very “competent” in that he can almost sniff the ailment that is threatening to dispatch you to the Creator. For instance, take this scenario. Last week, I was crawling to the said dispensary. My lower abdomen felt like Fukushima Nuclear Reactor before exploding. To describe it better, I felt like my diet before the ailment consisted of crashed needles, sharp nails and rocks watered down with concentrated sulphuric acid.
Anyway, when I got to dispensary, and queuing for what seemed as eons, the “doctor” without even letting me finish what I was saying had already scribbled away. I am not conversant with medical lingo but what he wrote on that damned paper was like a death sentence to me.
It meant that since he could not tell whether my ailment was malaria or typhoid or any allied diseases, I was condemned to a series of injections on my arms and backside (hate injections). Sometimes the nurse doing the shots would miss the intended vein and the business of sticking in and out would cause serious bleeding. I thank heavens that neither malaria nor typhoid killed me eventually. However, I have swollen arms and backside to show for it. Thanks to the “doctor”!
