Point Blank

By Michael Orido

Medicine simplified? Meet the new ‘doctors’ in town

There are new ‘doctors’ in town. They cure all kinds of diseases. Hey! don’t start thinking of an appointment because you will not need one. The ‘doctors’ are on the streets.

Their clinics consist of tents, a table, a few plastic chairs, a loud speaker and some wonder gadget they call Acutherapy Machine (sic) or simply ACM. This gadget, according to the ‘doctors’ PointBlank encountered on the streets of Nairobi, detects all kinds of diseases that include diabetes, HIV and Aids, pneumonia, cancer, typhoid, gonorrhea and malaria.

No injections

All one needs to do is to place his fingers on the machine and voila!, you will know what you are suffering from. There is no need of blood tests or injections.

Once the device detects a disease — a service offered for free — the doctors then sell you medicine. Going by the number of people who flock the ‘clinics’, PointBlank believes that the machine actually works. But why are doctors, who spend six years in medicine school, not adopting it? Are the ‘clinics’ another con game? Who authorised the ‘doctors’ to operate on the streets?

Where crime is sweet music to police ears

Driving on July 3 along Kendu Bay-Homa Bay Road near Kuoyo Kochia market at around 10pm, Mr Charles Okore encountered an incident that makes him believe the talk about police reforms is a load of rhetoric.

“I found thugs had barricaded the road with huge rocks. A white pick-up truck was parked at the spot with its headlamps on,” he recounts. With God’s luck, Okore successfully meandered through the rocks as the thugs made frantic efforts to stop him. A shaken Okore narrates he rushed to Kendu Bay Police Station to alert police officers.

 “To my shock, the officers on duty didn’t show an iota of interest. In fact, one of them, a lady, observed that the gang carjacked somebody at the point the previous day,” he says. With such kind of inaction, wonders Okore, what will not stop the public from believing the officers are colluding with thugs? He later called Kisumu OCPD Musa Kongoli, who alerted his Homa Bay counterpart.

“I thank him for the help, but my concern is, what happens to those who do not have contacts of police bosses, do they get any help at the police station,” he observes.

Burdening burdened parents

As a parent, Ms Akelo says she follows keenly education matters, in particular directives from the Ministry of Education. This helps her to plan and know issues that affect her child’s education.

Akelo was, however, surprised recently when she learned that parents at a school her child attends must pay full year’s school fees by last month.

“For me, it was an ambush. I had planned on how to pay the fees, but not by June,” she recounts. Akelo, however, found out that it is the standard practice in other boarding secondary schools. “Who came up with the idea that secondary school fees must be paid in full by second term? Did the Ministry of Education issue the directive?” asks the parent who notes paying between Sh32,000 and Sh60,000 within two terms is punitive.

risking lives

What irks Akelo most is that even when she wrote to the school’s head teacher committing to pay the fees, her child was still sent home. “This practice should not be condoned. Some teachers even send children home during odd hours risking lives. It is unacceptable. Education minister Mutula Kilonzo should come to the aid of parents,” pleads Akelo.

Remembering Solea’s ‘solace’

The sad thing about good things is that they do not last. Back in the days, Mr John Makokha, who describes himself as a 40-something African man, says he grew up using a gel known as Solea.

The cream, according to Makokha, was among the best, but it disappeared from the shelves.

Makokha, who thinks some people may accuse him of living in the past, however wants Beirsdorf, the company that used to manufacture the gel to shed light on the product. “This was one of the best lotions not only in its quality but pricing,” notes Makokha.

DON’T YOU FORGET

Did Coca-Cola unfreeze trader’s fridge plea?

Mr Michael Washika, who has been running a shop at Musoli market in Ikolomani, Kakamega County for ten years, wrote to PointBlank on July 26 noting that he had applied for a fridge from Coca-Cola, but the company had seemingly frozen his plea. “Over the years,  I have been trying to secure a Coca-Cola fridge from Kisumu and Kakamega main offices and even through my local agent without success, despite providing all the requisite documentation,” he noted. What, however, puzzled Washika was the speed at which new shops, with even smaller capital, obtained the company’s fridges. “It leaves me wondering whether there is something I am supposed to do, but haven’t done,” he noted. Did Coca-Cola finally help the trader so that his clients can enjoy cold drinks?