We failed Travis Maina, and he’ll surely haunt us

My phone is a constant stream of pinging notifications. A marathon of news chasing my attention. It was so on Monday the 10th. Netizens were tripping over themselves to post different versions of angry tweets regarding the death of Travis Maina, a child who succumbed to a head injury while awaiting treatment at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH).

As if the photos shared online were not heartbreaking enough, local dailies interviewed Travis’s mother, who, in infallible grief, blamed the death of her child to utter negligence of medics at KNH.

This is not the first time the national referral hospital is making grim headlines. Their woeful media and communications team acutely lack emotional intelligence in handling a crisis. Instead of empathy, they attempt to explain away misery, incensing Kenyans on Twitter (KOT), the unofficial Opposition.

Nevertheless, this anger that Kenyans feel is as superficial as their commitment to the war on graft. As plastic as their love for integrity in political leaders. They know the public healthcare system is on the precipice yet do not demand change loud enough. Calling for the sacking of unhelpful medics without addressing the breaches in the system will only replace them with more negligent ones.

That anger must translate into action. Poor governance gives us poor systems with poor outcomes.

Travis’s mum, when interviewed by the Daily Nation, cited poverty as part of the reason why her son died. Were Travis a middle-class Kenyan family’s child, he could have been rushed into an operating theatre at the Nairobi Hospitals and Aga Khans of this world. The surgeons would have left no stone unturned to save him. I hope the angry netizens see the gap between them and people who live below the poverty line. The poor cannot even afford a smartphone to tweet their problems away.  You can.

Health inequalities

Mama Travis represents the health inequalities that split Kenya into haves and have-nots. The haves speak from a point of privilege but won’t use it to demand change in health policy. A policy that public officers only seek services in public hospitals would see a miraculous transfiguration of our healthcare. No elected leader will be caught dead in a dilapidated fortress masquerading as a hospital. They would ensure safe staffing levels, adequate medical supplies and proper staff remuneration.

I’d want to solely blame the system for failing Travis but I am confronted with the unpalatable reality of medical negligence. I have been a nurse in our public hospitals; some people should never have gone to medical or nursing school. They know neither tail nor head of therapeutic communication.

A broken system is no excuse for malice. Compassion and empathy cost nothing. You don’t require a degree. Yet they are what distinguishes healthcare jobs from the brick-and-mortar industry.

I hope Travis Maina will forever haunt us. I hope this name will speed up better access to healthcare. In the interim, we can only sit in the riverbed of the family’s pain and hope to learn and do better.

Ms Maina is advanced kidney care clinical nurse specialist in the UK. [email protected]. @Catemimi1772