HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN GIVEN A CHANCE…
By Chidiebele Samuel
At the end of the surgery, the 25 year old man was taken to the recovery room. He just had a successful surgery for removal of a cancer involving the jaw. The good news, according to the managing doctor, is that the cancer responds to radiotherapy and the man has a very good chance of survival.
“We have given him a fighting chance”, the consultant Oral and maxillofacial surgeon said again, this time directing his comment to the recovery room staff. “Hopefully, we will achieve a total cure with radiotherapy”; he concluded. Later, in the waiting room, he explained to the relatives what happened and emphasized on the importance of radiotherapy.
Fast forward to a month later, radiotherapy session for the man hasn’t even started. The only functional machine in the southern part of the country has a 5 months waiting list. Only about Seven centers in the whole federation offer radiotherapy services in the whole country and just a few are currently functional- an example of the general dysfunction and inefficiency in the country.
A radiotherapy machine is a machine that beams radiation to tissues. It is one of the treatment modalities for cancer. This man that hitherto had a fighting chance with this ailment is being failed by the system!
Two months later, the man was brought back to the hospital as an emergency with severe breathing problems and worsened clinical condition. He was dead after about 30 minutes in the emergency room. A man who has a chance of surviving a deadly disease was let down by a country and health system that should have done the opposite.
The surgeon was sad when he heard of his demise. “How can we not value life in this country?” he asked. “This machine should be an essential equipment of care and available to all that need it”, he told his colleagues. “The sad part is that it cost just a few million and can be bought with the funds being wasted in the ministries and agencies of government”, He concluded with a sigh.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental
©2018
Dedicated to our numerous patients fighting one form of cancer or the other. As Martin Luther King. Jr once said “ we must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope ”.
