Bush Doctor in the City. Vol 17
Bush Doctor in the City. Vol 17
The Bush Doctor felt awkward during the morning ward round. His Bush Nurse was giving him the cold shoulder treatment. All because of this French volunteer Doctor who had ‘come to save Africa’. She arrived with only two days notice. Barely enough time to convert one of the storage rooms into 1 star bed and breakfast. She looked way too fine to be on his ward round he thought as she ran off to puke for the fifth time.
Her gifts of electronic blood pressure machines to a Bush Hospital without constant electricity had made him chuckle. And then, those fancy electronic incubators! The Bush Doctor had already found a buyer in the city. Once this French girl returns to her station, his American dream fund will receive a boost he thought.
He wished they had asked him first. All he would have asked for was antibiotics, ready to use therapeutic foods and surgical equipment.
Last night had been dramatic. A great tropical storm descended on the bush. The visitor appeared at his door claming she was scarred. He took to the floor in the corner while she took his bed. The cold night had a different kind of effect on the Bush nurse who let herself in with her keys. She jumped into the bed and soon both women were screaming their heads off in the dark. It took while to find his Bush lamp and calm them down.
As soon as the volunteer Doctor returned from her trip to the back of the hospital, the Bush Nurse asked if they could go to the leper colony to see Idi. Someone has reported his buttock ulcer has returned and it was currently harbouring maggots. The volunteer ran back out.
The Bush Doctor had to smile, there was no such patient.
Soon they all were in his office.
‘I have something to say. We might be expecting an emergency by around 1pm’ said the Bush Doctor.
‘From where?’ asked the Nurse suspiciously
‘The witch Doctor’ said the Bush Doctor tentatively
‘But I thought he promised to stop!’ said the Bush Nurse
‘Relax, so did I. He even offered to pay for the Atropine’ said the Bush Doctor lamely.
The Bush Doctor turned to his visitor and explained that the local witch Doctor was screening for witches with the Calabar ordeal bean. He had done it once before and almost killed a woman. Men were never screened.
‘And what did the Police have to say about it?’ asked the volunteer Doctor.
Her question was greeted with long laughter that made her go red all over.
‘Ha! I will tell you what her police man husband said. After she took 6 ground beans mixed in palm wine, she became weak and vomited. The police man said, ‘I knew she was a witch. No wonder I haven’t been promoted all these years’’.
The volunteer Doctor joined in the laughter.
‘But I thought that practice went out years ago. We read about it in Pharmacology. Contains Physiostigmine and makes the victim sweat, vomit, and become paralyzed before dying a most horrible death from asphyxia’ said the volunteer Doctor.
‘And that is why the antidote, Atropine is drawn up and ready’ said the Bush Doctor.
‘That makes you an accomplice’ said the volunteer Doctor. The Bush Nurse nodded in agreement.
‘In your country, do not the terrorist ring to warn about bombs about to go off? Would you call your emergency services accomplices? Let’s just call the witch Doctor a pharmacological terrorist and that will make me…..’
‘Accomplices’ the Bush Nurse cut in.
Pharmacological terrorists plague the Bush Doctor in the City as well. Selling hard drugs to his patients.
June 2006. MM 30 year old man turns up ‘stressed out’. He lives at home and the Police has raided the family home on a tip off. Woke everyone up. Neighbours and all. He claimed to have used Cocaine occasionally, but he did not deal.
Wants it logged down that he had sought help for his drug habit. His lawyer had apparently advised him to come. Will look good in front of the Judge.
I got that feeling I usually get when people who had been involved in minor accidents came three weeks later so that their account of symptoms and temporary disabilities be logged.
Shouldn’t somebody else be doing this?!
I referred him for drug rehabilitation and from his expressions I knew he thought this was a waste of time.
04-7-07. MA. 55 year old man came for his medication. Not had for a while as has been in Kashmir since April 2006. I would lie if I said my mind didn’t drift to Osama. I blame the media.
‘Went with family or alone?’ I asked.
‘Alone’
‘You left your wife alone all this while. What if somebody took her away?’ I joked.
‘Ah, the problem is me. I am the one who will take another man’s woman away. It is men who play the rude boy’ he laughed and gave me a handshake.
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