{"id":7502,"date":"2020-05-09T23:10:36","date_gmt":"2020-05-09T23:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/kenya\/?p=7502"},"modified":"2020-05-09T23:10:36","modified_gmt":"2020-05-09T23:10:36","slug":"lab-staff-my-baby-asks-why-i-no-longer-go-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/culture-and-art\/lab-staff-my-baby-asks-why-i-no-longer-go-home","title":{"rendered":"Lab staff: My baby asks why I no longer go home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>AfricaPress-Kenya: <\/strong>Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Moses Ondieki, a medic, never imagined that so much would be required of him as a professional and family man.<\/p>\n<p>The laboratory technician at Pathologists\u2019 Lancet Kenya, in charge of testing for Covid-19 samples, has had to make painful but critical sacrifices for the safety of his family and for the good of Kenyans.As part of the drastic changes to protect his family from contracting the disease, he has moved out of his family home to live alone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy\u00a0life has changed completely.\u00a0I\u00a0moved away from\u00a0my\u00a0family to keep them safe from the virus.\u00a0I\u00a0also did not want to live in an apartment where there are people because of the risk of exposing them to the virus.\u00a0I\u00a0live alone,\u201d says Ondieki, a father of three.Like all families of frontline workers, his family is concerned and have unending questions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy\u00a0young daughter cannot understand\u00a0why\u00a0I\u00a0never come home nowadays. But\u00a0I\u00a0believe it is for the good of all and it is temporary,\u201d he told Sunday Standard.Knowing the delicate nature of his father\u2019s job, his 21-year-old son knew what it meant when the first case was confirmed in Kenya.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Calls family<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s like he knew\u00a0I\u00a0would be on the frontline in this fight and that would come at a cost. He kept\u00a0asking\u00a0\u2018daddy what will happen now that everybody will be coming to Lancet for tests?\u2019\u201d he shares.As a medic, though he has faced many high stress medical situations that put his skills to test, he admits that the pressures and challenges that have come with Covid-19 are unprecedented.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, this is akin to a war situation.\u00a0\u201cWe are really in the middle of the war. Like a soldier when you go to battle if you come back alive you thank God but there is the likelihood you may get shot.\u00a0I\u00a0have handled people who are positive for coronavirus,\u00a0I\u00a0pray\u00a0I\u00a0don\u2019t contract the virus but there are those \u2018what ifs\u2019&#8230;,\u201d Ondieki says.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing that he is at the forefront, he is equally vulnerable to mental distress, he takes a deliberate action to keep close ties with his social support system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u00a0make sure\u00a0I\u00a0visit them once a week. But\u00a0I\u00a0keep social distance.\u00a0I\u00a0just sit in the car and we talk. Though\u00a0I\u00a0don\u2019t get out to interact with them, they are always happy to see me. It\u2019s not much, but it means everything to me and them,\u201d Ondieki says.<\/p>\n<p>Sleeps hungry some daysIn addition, he calls them every day in the evening to bond and check on them. Inasmuch he is putting up a brave face, he admits that living this new normal is not easy.<\/p>\n<p>There are long and lonely nights when he goes to bed hungry because he arrives home late and by then he is too tired to cook and the next day he has cleaning and laundry to do.Maintaining this new life is also expensive because it means extra costs of renting a second home and running it.<\/p>\n<p>There is also the anxiety of whether he has contracted the virus or not and for that every fortnight he does a Covid-19 test.He tests numerous Covid-19 samples per day because of the high demand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe public is in panic. People who are not sick or just have headaches are flocking the lab for tests,\u201d he says.But what keeps him going?\u201cMy\u00a0faith,\u00a0my\u00a0family and fellow Kenyans. We are in this together and together\u00a0we shall overcome&#8230;\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AfricaPress-Kenya: Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Moses Ondieki, a medic, never imagined that so much would be required of him as a professional and family man. The laboratory technician at Pathologists\u2019 Lancet Kenya, in charge of testing for Covid-19 samples, has had to make painful but critical sacrifices for the safety of his family and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":7500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,2111,4,8],"tags":[1539,3455,3454],"class_list":["post-7502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-coronavirus-in-kenya","category-culture-and-art","category-homepage-english","tag-covid-19","tag-lancet-kenya","tag-moses-ondieki"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lab staff: My baby asks why I no longer go home - kenya<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Moses Ondieki, a medic, never imagined that so much would be required of him as a professional and family man.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/culture-and-art\/lab-staff-my-baby-asks-why-i-no-longer-go-home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lab staff: My baby asks why I no longer go home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Moses Ondieki, a medic, never imagined that so much would be required of him as a professional and family man.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/culture-and-art\/lab-staff-my-baby-asks-why-i-no-longer-go-home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"kenya\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-05-09T23:10:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/sites\/28\/2020\/05\/faxjm078ux1f5eb70d3c58def.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"596\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/culture-and-art\/lab-staff-my-baby-asks-why-i-no-longer-go-home#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/culture-and-art\/lab-staff-my-baby-asks-why-i-no-longer-go-home\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Lab staff: My baby asks why I no longer go home\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-05-09T23:10:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/culture-and-art\/lab-staff-my-baby-asks-why-i-no-longer-go-home\"},\"wordCount\":611,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/culture-and-art\/lab-staff-my-baby-asks-why-i-no-longer-go-home#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/sites\/28\/2020\/05\/faxjm078ux1f5eb70d3c58def.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"COVID-19\",\"Lancet Kenya\",\"Moses Ondieki\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Coronavirus in kenya\",\"culture and art\",\"homepage-english\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/culture-and-art\/lab-staff-my-baby-asks-why-i-no-longer-go-home#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/culture-and-art\/lab-staff-my-baby-asks-why-i-no-longer-go-home\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/culture-and-art\/lab-staff-my-baby-asks-why-i-no-longer-go-home\",\"name\":\"Lab staff: My baby asks why I no longer go home - 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