19th September, 2008
Little Martha Ayacko picks up a dried reed and sweeps a heap of soil into a corner. She scoops some with her right hand and makes to transfer it into her left, but it just pours to the ground. She tries this several times, patiently, without success.
Little Martha’s left hand cannot hold anything in it. Her arm ends in a stump at her wrist - a distorted mass of thick black skin punctuated by five brown scars that mark the points from where fingers once sprouted.
Eventually the bubbly two-year-old gives up on the soil and runs to her mother, who is sitting nearby. Her smile reveals more horror. Her face is badly scarred, with poorly healed wounds that have formed into keloids sweeping across most of her face, starting from the mouth upwards across the nose and engulfing the entire left eye, forehead and plump cheeks.
Oblivious of her scars and injuries, Martha is making the best out of her little world. The innocent little girl loves to play and has a smile for everyone. She does not seem to know, or remember, the traumatic incident that stole her smile and her grip.
Martha is one of Kenya’s post-election violence statistics. She is lucky to have escaped with her life after a group of bloodthirsty youths came calling in her Kibera neighborhood, in the name of protesting the results of the presidential elections. The electoral commission had just announced Mwai Kibaki as presidential vote winner over his opponent Raila Odinga, who is the Member of Parliament for Lang’ata, where Martha’s Silanga village in Kibera is situated.
“I was away at work when the gangs of drunken and machete-wielding youth torched our house. They targeted our plot because it was owned by an individual from a community they claimed had stolen the election,” Martha’s mother, Rhoda, recalls.
A neighbour snatched Baby Martha from the raging inferno in the nick of time and took her to the Kenyatta National Hospital. Her mother found her in the intensive care unit later in the afternoon, where she was to spend the next one week unconscious, hanging on to dear life.
“It was the most trying time for me, watching her just lying there. She didn’t even cry. The machines and the many tubes going into her tiny mass were frightening. I feared I would lose her,” says Rhoda, tears welling in her eyes at the memory.
But luck was on the tiny angel’s side. Her condition improved and she was moved to the Burns Unit, where she stayed for 45 days, followed by another two weeks in the General Ward. For seven weeks, Rhoda made daily trips to the hospital to take milk to her daughter, whom she was not allowed to feed – the milk was taken away from her and given to Martha from a bottle. Gradually, the little girl regained her strength, her cry and her smile, and eventually her enthusiasm to run around and play.
But their troubles were not over. Her husband lost his job with a city hotel because he could not report to work as he had to stay home and look after their three other children while the baby was in hospital. When little Martha came home, she developed a flu, and Rhoda sought help from AMREF’s medical outreach clinic set up to help residents of Kibera who were unable to get to medical facilities after the election chaos. “Her medical cream has also run out,” she told Nurse Monica Wambui. “If I don’t apply it on her wounds, she is uncomfortable. Her skin itches and her eyes tear. Do you have anything that can help.”
Rhoda she got more than she bargained for. Not only did Nurse Monica give her medicine for the flu and cream for Martha’s skin, she phoned clinical officer Chrispin Ochieng and within minutes had worked out a referral for baby Martha to be screened by AMREF doctors to explore chances for reconstructive surgery. Martha is now on the waiting list for surgery.
“I cannot believe it! They did not only give me medicine but they want to give my baby her smile and her hand back,” said an ecstatic Rhoda after a meeting with Monica and Chrispin.
Martha is just one of 42,352 people who have so far been treated at AMREF outreach clinics established in February this year following the political upheaval that left 1,500 people dead and 350,000 displaced from their homes countrywide. The chaos disrupted provision of health services for the thousands who were forced to seek refuge in camps for Internally Displaced People and for thousands more who could not leave their houses due to insecurity.
As Africa’s leading health development organisation, and having worked in Kenya for 51 years, AMREF was uniquely placed to intervene in the humanitarian crisis and protect the health of those affected. At the Jamhuri Park, where close to 4,000 people sought refuge, AMREF set up a makeshift clinic for laboratory and treatment services, constructed pit latrines and bathrooms, and provided clean water and as well as sanitation education to promote hygiene and prevent disease outbreak in the crowded camp.
While some patients also sought treatment at AMREF’s Community Health Centre in the Kibera, the number of clients at the clinic had fallen drastically. AMREF was concerned about all the people who were trapped in their homes, too frightened to seek treatment for fear of attack. With the generous support of donors, AMREF quickly raised US$1.5 million and set up three mobile clinics to provide essential medical services to the people in the most affected areas, including Kibera.
By August this year, 21,608 children and 20,744 adults had received treatment from the mobile clinics, whose services were mainly focused on maternal health services, immunisation, health education, counselling and HIV and TB care and treatment. Another 21,860 people were treated at the Kibera centre, bringing the total to 64,212. The clinics, which will run for a year, have brought hope and relief to thousands who, like Little Martha, would otherwise have languished in ill health.
