Spreading gossip about sick people

By LINDA KEYA

Nothing makes them happy or gives them more satisfaction and self-gratification.  than talking about other people’s health.

It is as if they never made it to medical school to study medicine so to make up for their shortcomings. They go around exposing people’s personal health and medical history.

They are obsessed with what their neighbours, colleagues, family, friends and members of parliament are suffering from and will go out of their way to discover this classified information.

Confidential

The more details they release to the public, the happier and more excited they become. They probably gain some little weight from it.

If by bad luck they cannot find out someone’s medical records, they themselves fall ill from failing to secure the information to spread. Some will even befriend medics and nag them to reveal the postmortem reports of people they know.

They know classified and confidential information like who had a boil in a weird part of their body. How Mrs X battled it, when it burst and how much pus it released.

Information on which hospital one took their boil to be squeezed is readily at their fingertips, the doctor who squeezed it, the number of beakers or test-tubes of pus that came out, how many rolls of cotton wool the nurse used to clean the wound, how loudly one screamed and all that gory stuff.

Armed with this confidential information, these health news collectors and broadcasters go around repeating the story to whoever cares to listen or read their social media status.

Such types know those pretending to be on ARVS just to make money from donors, and they ensure as many people as possible get to know about it. Their overflowing files include who were among the first Kenyans to start HIV treatment; which famous female minister has been wearing a buibui and picking their ARVs from Nairobi Hospital; who died while wearing a napkin at a Dubai Hospital and whose hospital bill has reached a crisis.

Bowels

This hobby flows in even some respectable doctors’ blood, which goes way beyond the calling. These medics have been noted to discuss each of their patients’ medical conditions in bars after taking one too many.

“You know so and so’s wife? The woman has a rotten womb and yet the husband is bragging that he is a successful businessman,” they go.

Some nurses, too, enjoy this hobby and pass by neighbours and friends’ houses in the estate to inform them who is in which hospital, which ward and what disease they ail from. They explain in detail which patient can no longer control their bowels and how many nappies the patient is using per day.

They are so addicted to this hobby that they do not feel happy when they are not discussing people’s health: 

“Yes, I know Mrs Truphena Kataka. You mean the one that teaches at Kiberiti Primary School? She has been suffering serious diarrhoea this week. You should have heard the way her stomach rumbled as she sat in the toilet. Eh…this diarrhea of hers does not seem to stop at all...”

Miscarriage

Duncan Otiato, 45, told Crazy Monday that he has been a victim of such health defamers.  He narrated how his neighbour had revealed his medical status to every Tom, Dick and Harry in Kibera where he lives.

“I have been ridiculed by society and stigmatised. My health history has become an open book for every curious listener to devour,” a bitter Otiato explained his sorry situation.

“When my wife died in child-birth last year, my neighbour pretended to be very empathetic and visited us often.

“She was extremely kind to my three sons and often brought them gifts. But soon, another neighbour whispered to me that I had a knickname. Everyone was calling me, ‘Otiato the carrier’. ‘Why?’ I asked, wondering why I had acquired such a name. ‘Please don’t quote me but everyone knows that you infected your wife with HIV and now you are trying to infect more women, including school girls’,” the neighbour said.

The neighbour further confided in Otiato that this rumour had spread around like wildfire and the ‘helpful’ neighbour seemed quite happy spreading it.

Grace Nduta has also been a victim of this strange hobby — which has consumed men and women in almost equal measures.

“When I had my second miscarriage, my cousin, whom I confided in, appeared very sympathetic at first. But soon, I heard from my in-laws that she was spreading rumours that I had aborted twice before getting married and that was why I was having problems carrying my babies.

“She informed my mother-in-law that she knew me well as we had attended the same secondary school. This was a lie as she went to school in the village while I attended schools in the city. Now my mother-in-law has turned against me and is trying everything possible to have his son leave me. There is so much tension in my marriage right now,” says a bitter Nduta. 

Peter Ngina, 37, a carpenter in Gikomba market says he was so demoralised by what a colleague at the market was saying about him. And that were it not for the strong support system he got from his wife and children, he would have committed suicide.

His fellow carpenter at the market went around telling everyone that he had tuberculosis and that it was dangerous to have him work at their workstation. He further alleged that Ngina was not taking his drugs which he had been given at Mbagathi District Hospital and that his TB had become resistant.

“I have never suffered from TB or even been to the said hospital. He said I had terrible rushes on my chest. I wonder when and where he saw these alleged rashes since he is not my wife. I only had a bad cough after I was rained on,” says Ngina.

This ostracised him especially since his collogues had warned him against reporting to work. His business suffered greatly, thanks to the malicious carpenter-turned-doctor by a gossiping berg.

Ngina says he asked some colleagues to accompany him to Mbagathi and the hospital confirmed he had a clean bill of health.

“I don’t talk to him anymore. But I hear now he is on his next victim,’ says Ngina.

House-workers are believed to be among those who easily expose their employers’ status of health to relatives.

Boil

“Mzee has been very ill. Mama has been pressing his left buttock with hot water and spirit. Since the nurse injected him for his gonorrhea, he has such a painful swelling on his buttock. He has been limping the whole week and we fear that he may become disabled,” one maid was heard to tell visitors at an estate in Langata.

Betrayed

Dr Frank Sasini, a physician at a local hospital in the city says that someone’s medical record is supposed to be confidential.

“It is very important who you give your medical history. Remember, they can use it to destroy you or cause you to be stigmatised,”  Dr Sasini  cautions.

The doctor particularly warns family members to be cautious when discussing a family member’s medical condition, especially without their consent.

He notes that patients’ confidentiality is often abused when there is a Harambee to raise funds for treatment.

“In a number of cases, families may have exclusive information about a patient, especially when a critical decision is to be made.  But this is not an excuse to divulge all the details to the public at a fundraising. Please let the patient have some privacy and dignity,” he advises.

Sociologist Daisy Lubamba says some people bring it upon themselves by disclosing too much about their own health. Then when people start discussing and gossiping their health, they feel betrayed.

“There are those who believe that diseases like Malaria, Diabetes, Gout and High Blood Pressure are prestigious and closely associated with good living — the disease of the rich.

“That is why some people carry around these illnesses like a handbag. They own the disease to the extend of referring to it as “my malaria, my gout, my pressure” to show off their wealth and flout their social class. Then they blame others for picking their health issues as a hobby,’ says Lubamba.

So, do tell, health gossip, which MP has a boil? .