“The Doctored Abuse”

In the movie “The Tears of the Sun”, one of the character asks Bruce Willis if they can pray for Africa. Bruce Willis, responded back by saying, “God left Africa long time ago.”

The expose by Citizen T.V journalist Evelyn Wambui and Lulu Hassan on #DocturedAbuse, leaves a lot to be desired on the issue health matters. Where patients who are consumers are left in the hands of rogue/ unscrupulous /unprofessional practioners in the name of providing better service.

With the high cost of living, most consumers cannot be able to afford the services of gynecologists, thus, being taken into advantage by the “fake” doctors who take advantage of the situation. Most of these fake clinics are situated in the slum areas, where we have more people and the probability of being known to be a fake is zero. Is it because of ignorance?

Many of these fake clinics will attract customers by pretending to provide free services, or lying that there are doctors coming from abroad that will come to offer their services for free. Being a free mentality country, these fake clinics will never lose customers because of such deceptive advertisement they use to lure customers with. However, this should not mean the same does not happen in the up market clinics, all these abuses tend to happen because of the vulnerability of the patients.

Do consumers really ask? Unlike in the Western Countries where consumers will ask what they are being offered with? Most of the Kenyan consumers survive through referrals from other consumers. Therefore through ignorance we fall prey of such abuses like rape. With the Mugo’s case, many of the clients came from the deceptive advertisement he used to do and most likely referrals, being a service offered to women. Looking at Mugo Wa Warimu (Mkenya Mzalendo) facebook page, makes me realize that consumers are generally ignorant with reality.

A statement from one of the consumers who is a man, states that: Mwalimu William Kimani weighed in: “There is one thing I know…. Mugo is clean let the toothless dogs bark God is in control,” while Eliud Gitauh said, “….following. Never loose hope broda! Truth will be known. I understand the forces behind all this (sic).” Such statements shows how defenseless and vulnerable our consumers have become. (Nairobi News)

Are Consumers aware of where to report?

Various bodies, are available for consumers for example, Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board, Consumers Federation of Kenya, Kenya Police, the Fourth Estate, etc. all these institutions are open for the consumers to air their complains. However as shown by activist Boniface Mwangi on his Social Media facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/BonifaceMwangiBM/photos/pcb.1060066807346550/1060066617346569/?type=1&theater shows how the activist did complain to Kenya Medical Practioners Dentist Board in 2009 about a doctor whom up to now, KMPDB has never given their findings regarding the complain.

Going back to “Dr”. Mugo who has been disowned by the KMPDB, the question that many of us will start to ask ourselves is if Mugo has a psychological disorder? The vast majority of violent crimes are committed by people who do not suffer from a severe mental illness. Evil is not an illness and it spreads across all demographic groups. People who suffer from mental illness are more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of violent crime and are more likely to be the victim of violent crime that are "normal" people. It's adding insult to injury to make them the victims of bigotry as well- Joanne Shortell, Mental Health Advocate

 However, according to Dan Robb, rapist might be having a disorder termed as paraphilic fantasies. The paraphilic preferences occur only episodically (e.g., perhaps during periods of stress), whereas at other times the person is able to function sexually without paraphilic fantasies  or stimuli. Is “Dr” Mugo, a victim of paraphilic fantasies? Then time will tell.

Just like Joanne Shortell, evil is not an illness, therefore a crime such as rape should not be treated differently but as evil and crime. Justice is always needed.