The Unknown Health Worker (a tribute to somebody)

The fabled East African askari (Kiswahili for “soldier”) served in the armies of colonial masters, fought his own brothers and sisters, and died as an unknown soldier protecting the wealth of foreigners.

Nowadays, the unknown health worker fights at the front line, exhausted and sometimes dying a similarly unheralded death, but ultimately only protecting the interests of the Do- Gooders and Elites who use their sacrifice to prime the pump of foreign donor money. (“Need of more health workers”)

Consider the story of a clinical officer on the frontline, a member of the health corps, part of the small group fighting all over the world for decent care and adequate treatment! She knew a lot about HIV/AIDS and was one of the very few counselors in rural Tanzania before the introduction of antiretroviral treatment in Makete.

She cared for others, held their hands during the slow, agonizing death that was the lot of an AIDS patient in her part of the world. She was keen in treating opportunistic infections and learned everything about ARVs in a short time, becoming a skillful treatment counselor. She was a good clinician and had a child and a husband.

She was pregnant and tired and developed severe anemia. Shortly after delivery, she was tested and found to be HIV positive. She had a rather low CD4 count and started taking drugs. Unfortunately, she developed full-blown extra pulmonary tuberculosis as a form of immune recovery syndrome. She made it through additional TB Therapy but could not work for 6 months. Slowly, her health improved. Her husband refused to be tested and ran away from her and their children.

She went on working and pushed herself too hard, she took night duties in a Lutheran Hospital that had been completely bankrupted by corruption and theft where she got weaker and weaker. The hospital’s managers and her corrupt colleagues, the diocese and the donors did not care. Their lives were not at risk!

Her ARV compliance went from bad to worse, as with many health staff throughout the world, who end up caring more for others than for themselves. She had neither time nor energy to deal with the moral bankruptcy of the Elites and Do-Gooders in her surroundings. Finally she left but was ill-treated by relatives and died in a bigger hospital – it was too late. Her family started fighting over who would receive her death benefits. Her last-born died of AIDS a short time later.

It seems the only ones who really missed her, were her fellow patients living with HIV/AIDS.
We commend and we remember her, the unknown health worker; for a few hundred dollars a year, she worked herself to an early death in an unmarked grave.