23 July 2008
Nairobi — Driving past Limuru on the Nakuru-Nairobi highway, the road opens up to a viewpoint of the Great Rift Valley escarpment.
The remains of a church which was torched in Rurigi in Eldoret during the post-election violence early this year. Another church in Kiambaa area in the town's outskirts was also gutted, leaving scores of people dead. Four children who survived the tragedy are still recuperating at the AIC Kijabe Mission Hospital. Photo/Jerry Riley
Curio shops eager for tourist stopovers have been set up by the cliff, displaying bright coloured kikois against the drop of the valley with Mt Longonot at the horizon.
Specks of iron sheet roofs shimmer in the dull noon sun in various squares and rectangles of browns and greens of shambas spread across the bottom of the valley.
We were headed to Kijabe Town, our destination a small mission station set up by the African Inland Church missionaries in the late 1800s.
Windy place
The town's name is derived from the Maa language and means "the windy place". And we see proof of this in every passing person who is swathed in some kind of warm woolly apparel.
AIC Kijabe Hospital is at the edge of the Great Rift Valley escarpment in Lari Division of Kiambu District. Turning off the highway the narrow road passes through thick forest into the Kijabe Mission Station, about two kilometres from the town.
For a long time, Kijabe Hospital has been a landmark for those seeking affordable treatment from far and wide.
It started when a group of missionaries began a medical unit in 1915. It has grown since then and now has in-patient, out-patient, maternity and paediatric sections.
The total bed capacity is 249. The hospital treats an average of 300 patients daily, with a large percentage coming from as far as North Eastern and even Somalia and Ethiopia.
During the post-election chaos early this year, the hospital sent medical teams to various camps, including Naivasha, Kirathimo and Nakuru.
This strained the institution financially, as the institution incurred a cost of about Sh1.6 million. The surgery and treatment of the four children who survived the arson on Kiambaa church in Uasin Gishu is more than Sh900,000 and growing.
"At Kijabe, we do not just mend or fix ailments; we also preach and provide hope and compassion to the patients. We do not turn anyone away; our priority is not money, but their physical and spiritual welfare. Our compassion must be the reason we have patients coming from far and wide," says Mr Julius Marete, the hospital's executive director.
As we walk past the waiting room, the sick sit calmly awaiting their turn to be attended to.
At Bethany Kids, the paediatric ward, we stop to have a look at special patients - Mercy 14, Mary 16, Jedidah 4 and Anthony 11. These are the children who are receiving treatment after the Kiambaa church tragedy in Eldoret.
Strangers before the incident, they are now friends, a friendship forged in tragedy. A Good Samaritan risked driving them through the then dangerous Eldoret-Nairobi highway after spending some time at an Eldoret hospital.
"These children are very special to us and are such a success story. We are very proud of them," says Mr Joshua Omolo, an anaesthetist at the hospital.
"When they first came, their burns were festered due to lack of proper medical attention. Even after skin grafting and several reconstructive surgeries, they hardly suffered any infection. They were so positive and brave and now you see them around the hospital smiling and looking much better. Some of these things have nothing to do with us but more to do with the hand of God," says Mr Omolo.
We found some young volunteers going through school work with the children. They use books donated by well-wishers.
"Sometimes we walk into their room to find them all quiet perhaps thinking about their future. The constant question on their lips is where they will go from here," Sister Brenda Gathenya, the nurse-in-charge of the paediatric ward says.
Mercy's mother, Margaret Nyambura, was a nursery school teacher before she quit to raise her children. Her husband was a farmer and the sole breadwinner. The children are terrified at the thought of returning to the place they once knew as home.
Mary's and Jedidah's (the little one was in the local Kijabe Mission nursery school at the time we visited as she has since recovered) mother Serah Wanjiku Kariuki was a farmer before the violence.
Her children are too traumatised to go back and she is looking for a way to resettle elsewhere.
Anthony's mother, Peninah Wangui Mbuthia, is a tailor and is wondering how to restart her life. They lost everything in the attacks including her sewing machine, which earned the family their daily bread.
The hospital also has HIV clinic that cares for slightly under 5,000 patients. In the height of the violence, the operations were disrupted, but they were able to reach a large number of their patients who required life-saving ART medication by using their community health workers, volunteers and staff.
Indeed, AIC Kijabe Hospital is an oasis of compassion for many and as we walk away, our hearts are warmed by the hope we see in the eyes of the people walking up and down the corridors of the hospital.
Mahatma Gandhi's words " be the change you want to see in the world" seem to be the driving force of the hospital.
It stands out as a Kenyan Shujaa, at hand when needed most to replenish drained life and hope for our nation, generation after generation.
Copyright © 2008 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
Read comments. Write your own.
