Wilbroda

A visit to the hospital in Nairobi. (October 26th, 2007)

We met Lilian and alan and I went to Nairobi to visit Wilbroda at Kenyatta National Hospital. When we got off the bus and walked to the hospital entrance there were a lot of people all going the same direction. We got to the lift and people just jammed their way to the front, blocking the doors so that people couldn’t get out first and it just makes it harder for people to get in. We were packed into one elevator and fortunately we were only going to the 3rd floor.

We found Wilbroda in a crib-bed in Ward 2 where there are 10 beds in 2 rows. There were people who were visiting standing around the crib and I was wondering who all these people were. Lilian told me they are probably visiting the other girl, and then I saw the girl at the other end of the bed who is sharing this bed with Wilbroda. I couldn’t see her at first because of all the people blocking my view. I couldn’t imagine this, but this is how it is, the hospital is so crowded that this is what they do.

I caught Wilbroda’s eyes, when she saw me she gave me a smile, and then she gave alan a smile as well. We waited around and Lilian interpreted for us. Lilian had visited her grandfather in the hospital on Wednesday so she dropped in to see Wilbroda. Then Wilbroda didn’t want to talk at all, but today, two days later, she answered questions and she told us she would like to eat oranges. We told her we would visit her again tomorrow and bring some oranges with us. We were about to leave and Wilbroda got up and she walked a little bit with us outside the ward. Then we took her back in and left.

The whole ward had such a heavy smell of illness, the place was crowded with lots of visitors. The children in the beds looked very sick. Outside in the corridor you would be met by sick children from the other wards. There are 3 wards in this section. The children are standing around along the length of the corridor grouped together talking. There is one child lying on the floor in the middle of the corridor. Some are coming to greet us with hands extended to shake ours. The floor everywhere is all dirty, and around the beds in the ward were crumbs, stains from food, and many places the floor felt sticky under your feet. Can you imagine it? I was wondering if they would clean the floor at the end of the day.

In order to avoid the crowd we took the stairs and walked down, this was done in a more orderly fashion, people were walking down on one side and up on the other and again. Walking down the stairs you just see a sea of heads everywhere.