Africa-Press – Malawi. To begin with, whoever came up with the design of Chilomoni Health Centre in Chilomoni Township, Blantyre, came up with a great idea. This is because structures at the facility look imposing, even if somehow sandwiched by houses that give it [the health facility] the veneer of a living thing thrown in the middle of a ring of enemies and, then, struggling to find breathing space.
Not that there are balustrades at the place; just a brick wall that is designed to offer the place some feel of privacy. Talking about medical personnel; everyone feels at home in their hands, knowing, fully well, that there are people well-versed in their job.
Whatever disease one throws at Chilomoni Health Centre medical personnel is sure to be attended to with utmost professionalism. I remember, one day, a minibus driving sustaining eye injuries in a road accident two years ago.
The windshield broke, with dozens of its particles making their way into the driver’s eyes. Both eyes at that. Guess what? Chilomoni Health Centre personnel dealt with the problem. Not that there is an ophthalmologist; not to my knowledge [at least at the time of the accident].
But, then, medical personnel there attended to the man, removing one piece of windshield glass one after another until, in less than an hour, all the pieces of glass were removed from the patient’s eyes.
Today, he waxes lyrical about Chilomoni Health Centre medical staff. His favourite phrase is: “There is no junior ‘doctor’ at Chilomoni Health Centre. Indeed, there is no ‘small’ hospital in Malawi. All public healthcare service facilities in Malawi have able hands. A Malawian healthcare professional can work anywhere in the world.”
Now, maybe you may be wondering as to why I have put single quotation marks around the word ‘doctor’. Well, it is for the simple reason that the ordinary Malawian calls every male health sector worker found at a medical facility ‘doctor’ and female one ‘nurse’. I do not know why because, in essence, we have female doctors proper [with PhD) and male medical technicians [not necessarily doctors].
In fact, a male person can be a nurse and midwife. So, it is high time Malawians stopped calling everyone found at a medical facility doctor or nurse. It is essential for service seekers to ask for one’s proper designation to know if they are being treated by the right person or not.
I digressed. Today, I want to talk about the sorry state of the road to Chilomoni Health Centre after an experience I had yesterday morning. I boarded a vehicle [public transport] at Nthukwa Trading Centre in Chilomoni Township, heading for Blantyre Central Business District from where I would board another vehicle to take me to the office: Scott Road, Ginnery Corner, in Blantyre.
As it turned out, I happened to be the only passenger and the vehicle took off. Well, upon arrival at Chilomoni Main Market filling station, some two people rushed towards our vehicle and asked the driver to, “please, follow us to Chilomoni Health Centre, where we have a patient, a woman in labour, who is facing problems and medical personnel have referred us to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) for further medical treatment”.
Well, I do not want to delve into the issue of why the health centre could not facilitate the transportation of the patient to the referral hospital. I had no time to inquire into why.
All I want to say is that I told the driver to “Please, let us go and take the patient from Chilomoni Health Centre to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital”. He accepted.
Getting to the hospital was a nightmare; the earth road is not in good state. It actually took us six minutes to cover the distance from Chilomoni Main Market to Chilomoni Health Centre—all because of the poor state of the road.
When we carried the patient into the vehicle and started off for QECH, it took us 10 minutes because we did not want the potholes to add to the pain the patient was enduring.
What I observed at Chilomoni Health Centre is that it does not just need a good tarmac road— I believe it is the responsibility of Blantyre City Council and not necessarily the Roads Authority— its grounds all need a concrete floor to save patients from pothole-induced nagging pain.
Otherwise, the bumpy grounds of Chilomoni Health Centre and the potholed road to the healthcare service facility scream of negligence of the highest order.
People are suffering, yes, but it is inhumane to subject patients to external pain when they are enduring internal pain. No, Dear Pain; that is not on.
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