A doctor’s lonely story of misery, hope in isolation

The days in isolation are long and the nights even longer for more than 200 people who have tested positive for Covid-19 in Kenya.

There is nothing productive to do within confinements. Life in isolation is gloomy and sad, worsening an already bad situation.

Danson Macharia (above), one of the affected, says one needs a strong will because the conditions are not conducive. “At times I just go to the window to just look at the traffic,” says Dr Macharia, adding: “There is nothing else to do and there is no privacy even when talking to your family members.”

The medic is in isolation at The Nairobi Hospital after being confirmed positive for coronavirus on March 31.

Two tests done on admission at the hospital and on day 14 since first testing positive have all still turned positive, adding to his psychological strain.

“This is the first time in my life that I have had to use medicine to sleep,” he says, adding that he is not the only one in such a predicament.

Difficult circumstances

“I have definitely gone through difficult circumstances in my life, like everybody else, but not to this extent where I am now on treatment for sleep disturbances and anxiety,” he explains.

Macharia has had no symptoms whatsoever, neither is he on any treatment.

Consultants seeing him just advised him to continue on high dose Vitamin C while making sure he has a balanced diet every day.

The verbal manner in which the results were relayed to him left a lot of doubts about the authenticity of the whole exercise. He received a number of phone calls confirming his test was positive. The callers soon after required him to disclose very personal information without clarifying who they were.

Up to now, Macharia has not seen any of his three test results. Something that really distressed him was being admitted with no symptoms, raising doubts as to whether he was actually confirmed to have coronavirus.

Still asymptomatic

After his third results turned positive, his stay at the hospital was extended by seven days, something that upset and baffled him in equal measure since he was still asymptomatic.

“I don't know what difference the seven days will do. In fact, what staying in here does is expose me to the sicker patients being admitted into the ward,” he says.

Some of the people he found when he was admitted are still with him in the same ward. Some have long recovered, except for a positive swab test that will cause them to stay longer at the health facility.

Macharia is worried that the kind of stress he is enduring now might be a recipe for more trouble.

Being the only doctor in the ward, Macharia finds himself struggling to cope as a patient and at the same time still playing the role of the doctor who allays the anxiety of the other patients admitted with him and extending that trusted source of solace to their relatives who call. He does the same to his kin, who call so often to check on him.

Macharia had flown into the country from Nigeria where he is stationed. He took a chartered flight provided by his employer from Jos in Northern Nigeria, through Abuja to Lagos.

He spent a night in Lagos before boarding a Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi, arriving on March 23 after Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe had announced the new measure of mandatory quarantine for all persons coming into the country. “Had this announcement come prior to me making my travel arrangements, I would have cancelled the plans and stayed in Nigeria,” he says.

Macharia says his employer had implemented stringent hygiene measures and he would have been better off in Nigeria.

He suspects that the mess in handling the mandatory quarantine exposed him to the virus after being kept waiting for four hours at the passport control before immigration officials made sense of directives from the CS.

At the baggage hall, nearly 500 anxious travellers, each with a suitcase or two in hand, locked in under tight security, only released in batches of 60 to board NYS buses to identified hotels or other centres for mandatory quarantine.

“There was no separation of persons based on where they arrived from. We were all herded into the buses, regardless of who came from a then high risk country,” he says.

The bus drivers, Macharia says, did not seem to have clear plans on where to drop off. "It was a random drive to the hotels. People alighted as they wished".

Macharia opted for Pride Inn Lantana, where the staff did not seem aware that these were not regular guests but ones who needed to be handled with caution.

Protective gear and hand hygiene were still alien concepts. Meals were served as buffet, with people free to use common areas.

Four days after admission, an officer from Ministry of Health visited the hotel to enlighten them on coronavirus. There was little on why they were in mandatory quarantine and what guidelines and rules existed.

The officers were supposed to be making regular screening checks on them, but Macharia says the visits were erratic and unpredictable. “They drove in and out of the hotel when they visited without much protective gear while still interacting with the persons in quarantine,” he says.

Macharia opted to keep to himself in his room and wait for 14 days to lapse to be reunited with his family. “When I got my results, people were surprised that it was I, the one person who observed all the rules. But I guess in hindsight they were grateful that I did not mingle with them.”  Some, he says, thought he knew from the outset that he was Covid-19 positive.

Only Macharia tested positive at the hotel, but the rest were still slapped with 14 more days of mandatory quarantine, a measure that has since caused uproar. “The CS and his team should visit the isolation centres and see how Covid-19 positive people are living,” he concludes.