I believe I am accurate in stating that just about every child growing up at home had at least one uncle with a capacity to engage in childhood banter and generous in gifting non-essentials like sweets, biscuits and the occasional toy.
I had one such favourite uncle and couldn’t quite understand why many of the adults considered him irresponsible and having a skewed set of priorities.
Nonetheless, as children we loved him dearly. Unfortunately, he was also my first childhood experience of the cruelty of death.
What caused his death was whispered and rumoured and never quite clear at that time.
As an adult, I was to learn that this dear uncle who was, coincidentally, not a blood relation had been ailing for some time with persistent, on-and-off fevers.
He was reported to have visited no less than six medical facilities in the last eight months of his life.
He was treated for malaria three times and tested for tuberculosis twice before he resorted to self-medication with over-the-counter treatments for bronchitis.
After all, he was still able to engage in most of his chores with relative ease.
There were those who advised him to seek help from local medicine men capable of neutralising the source of his illness identified as his divorced wife’s spell.
The poor man had pneumonia that had gone undiagnosed in time and therefore remained untreated, resulting one day in rapid progression and massive fluid buildup in the lungs, and death.
A man who was able to walk to work that very morning was no more by 5 pm that very evening.
Statistics show that 30 per cent of ailing people don’t go to hospital due to their inability to pay for healthcare costs, while 15 per cent find the healthcare facilities not easily accessible.
Another 15 per cent are actually unaware that they need healthcare and attribute their discomfort to other reasons. Ten per cent simply have no healthcare facility to go to, so must seek other remedies, while the last 30 per cent find seeking healthcare too laborious, fear stigma or have cultural or religious prohibitions.
Was there a different path that maybe would have resulted in a longer life for my cherished uncle?
The basic principle to solving problems dictates that one must first understand the problem. This applies also to health matters.
This interrogation of one’s health has three basic components. The first is a patient’s medical history.
This includes detailed information on symptoms, their onset, severity and nature, past illnesses, consumed medication, genetic predisposition, allergies and lifestyle, with attention to occupation, tobacco and alcohol use.
The second component is a physical examination to determine the state of health, with inspections for swelling, discoloration, abnormal movement and checking on vital signs, primarily temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure.
The last aspect in understanding a patient’s medical challenge is in diagnostic testing and analysis, which may range from blood tests through imaging to specialised vital organ’s function tests.
These would give a clear indication of where the problem lies. In each of the health facilities my ailing uncle visited he gave what he remembered of his medical history.
He underwent a fresh set of examinations and diagnostics tests on each and every occasion, resulting in medical fatigue.
This quite possibly could have been overcome were medical records to be digitalised and made available to accredited personnel, thus making healthcare better targeted.
This is one of the milestone benefits that the Social Health Authority is expecting to roll out countrywide, revolutionising healthcare in the country, making it possible for someone whose records are in Isebania, Migori county, to get the correct treatment in Faza, Lamu county.
A Ministry of Health report released a few years back stated that more than 80 per cent of medical facilities in Kenya have reliable electricity, while 84 per cent are accessible by road all year round.
However only 31 per cent use any form of Electronic Healthcare Information System.
These statistics indicate a sound enough foundation
on which to build and populate a
platform for medical records with
sufficient information to prevent
misdiagnosis, thus saving the lives
of people like my late beloved uncle.
