As Khalwale and Oparanya fight, patients in Kakamega are staring at death

Am sure those of you who watch television at prime news time must have needed the support of the left hand to push back the lower jaw into position. Of course, that would be after it dropped out of its default position and couldn’t go back of its own accord after seeing the star treatment that patients at the Kakamega referral hospital were getting.

It is not really possible to ascertain the number of stars, if you ask me, because one is surely likely to see quite a number of them while in excruciating pain, sleeping in an uncomfortable position on a hostile cold floor on cartons minus a cover.

Such treatment is a sure recipe for entertaining thoughts about going to heaven. But remember, as much as we sing about heaven being the land of milk and honey, no one is too keen to go there early; not even the fellows who shout themselves hoarse regaling us with tales of the wonders of that far off place.

Isn’t the governor honcho who should be throwing his weight about overtly, kicking a few lazy bones into line? We have come to appreciate that behind every successful man there is a woman, but did it have to be Mrs Oparanya telling the world how her husband wasn’t really measuring up? It was during her tour at the Kakamega General Hospital that journalists discovered the sad state of affairs.

I know she meant well, but she does not possess the devious, calculating mind of a politician. These are fellows who take time to find out how to lie in wait to whack some unfortunate fellow trying to trespass into marked territory. Yes, if you have been to the wild, you should understand that buffaloes mark their territory by simply ejecting jets of their own urine on the boundary of their grabbed territory. A wandering male straying there finds soon enough he has a fight on his hands.

Show of muscle

There is not much difference between buffaloes and bulls except one is not domesticated while the other is. Having come this far, we might grudgingly understand why Governor Oparanya might be preoccupied. A couple of weeks back, a stray bull wandered into his territory and despite the warning hissing and bellowing, it refused to acknowledge it was intruding.

So, goaded on by the one and only acknowledged bullfighter, Senator Dr Bonny Khalwale, there was a show of muscles at the Muliro gardens in Kakamega just weeks back. Dr Khalwale threw his weight behind Mr Moses Wetangula.

That must have hurt Mr Oparanya and caused him the temporal lapse in judgement that made him allow his wife to open the cupboard where skeletons that needed to stay locked up were hidden. Misplaced priorities are what define our county leadership. Only recently good friends complained to me about the Kakamega county government paving the road to a hospital where there are no drugs; just too many coffin sellers around the facility.

And there was this mysterious fire where some Asians want to put eeh, some business! Meanwhile, as Mr Oparanya and Dr Khalwale fight, patients are staring at the grave. Wouldn’t it be better to have the non-carcinogenic wheelbarrows than this shame of neglecting the sick?