Kenya’s unhappy doctors and nurses

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

All over the world, frontline health workers have paid the ultimate price during the coronavirus pandemic. But in Kenya the story of one young doctor’s heroism has made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Twenty eight year-old Stephen Mogusu died from Covid 19 in December 2020, after working on an isolation ward and complaining that he lacked adequate protective clothing. Despite his vital service, he hadn’t been paid a salary for five months. Stephen’s tragedy also exposes a wider malaise in Kenya’s health provision: A corruption scandal involving overpriced masks, aprons and other protective clothing. Meanwhile, across the country, a series of on-off strikes have disrupted care, as doctors, nurses and clinicians have made sporadic protests against alleged mismanagement and a devolved power structure they say is dysfunctional. For Assignment, Lucy Ash finds out what’s ailing Kenya’s healthcare system.

Producer: Michael Gallagher Editor: Bridget Harney

(Image: Healthcare workers light candles next to a photograph of Doctor Stephen Mogusu. Credit: Dennis Sigwe/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to assignment on the BBC World Service.
0:07.0	On the outskirts of a village in Kisei, Western Kenya, a couple are harvesting some bananas from their small plot.
0:16.2	Agnes, a former teacher and Nafthal, a retired factory worker, can barely make ends meet.
0:28.2	As they hack away in their dusty compound,
0:31.1	their thoughts are with their only son Stephen, who showed promise early on.
0:36.0	He was a very good pupil.
0:38.0	In fact, in this school, he was position one.
0:41.0	He got all the marks to be a doctor to qualify to be a doctor.
0:47.0	And were you happy that he wanted to be a doctor?
0:49.0	We were very happy. Like me, I am diabetic, I have pressure.
0:55.0	So you felt like you can look after everybody.
0:58.0	Exactly.
1:00.0	Agnes and Nafthals scrimped and saved to educate their five children.
1:05.0	Stephen, the youngest, got a government loan to go to medical school.
1:09.0	Then last year he landed his first job near the capital Nairobi but he didn't tell his
1:15.0	parents what it entailed. He never told us that he has gone to work in isolation
1:21.0	award. If we knew we couldn't agree because we know that there it is
1:27.1	dangerous. He told me, God, who gave me this work will take care of me.
1:35.0	Then he called me, and when he called me he coughed.
1:41.0	And he told me, Mother, do you know I'm sick and the sickness I have is COVID-90.
1:49.2	This is the final resting place of Stephen Mogousu and it's right in the family compound.
2:00.0	There's just a small plaque on it and the plaque says in loving memory of Dr Stephen Rogita Mugusu December the 7th 2020.
	...

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