Man caught feasting on patient’s food eats humble pie

A man embarrassed himself mid last week at a Nairobi hospital after he was caught red-handed munching food meant for a patient. The man’s wife had been admitted to the hospital, and had no one to cook for him at home.

He had developed a habit of going to the hospital and hanging around till the time meals were served. And seeing as his wife always had no appetite for food, he would eat some of her food and any other goodies brought to her by friends and relatives. 

The man has grown up children who moved out of his house, leaving him and his wife in the house. The man heavily relied on his wife to do household chores, including cooking. Her absence in the house had dealt a big blow to his daily survival. Thus, he always hung around the hospital, not just consoling and comforting his wife, but also timing meal-hour. 

The man devised a plan to be eating at the hospital, which he did for almost a week, without the hospital management being any wiser. Tickled patients regaled this writer with tales of how they had been envying the couple, seeing as the husband was always by the side of his wife’s bed. Little did they know that food is what kept him around.

“Relatives and friends filtered in during the day with flowers and cards wishing her quick recovery. Surprisingly, the energy drinks, cakes, and other food stuffs always ran out faster than one could imagine,” observed a patient attendant at the hospital. 

During meal time, whenever the attendants came requesting the woman to place her order, her husband readily made the order, picking delicacies he had missed eating; something that the attendant found strange, but kept quiet about. On this particular day, after his wife fell into deep slumber, he descended on foodstuff brought in by friends and relatives with relish.

Whenever visiting time lapsed before he had eaten, he would hide and remain in the ward. He had been doing this for a while, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was when he pushed the joke too far by sneaking into another patient’s cubicle to steal food.

He tore the aluminum foil that had been used to cover the food, and tip-toed back to his wife’s cubicle. No sooner had he bitten into a piece of chicken he had stolen, than a nurse on ward rounds stumbled upon him.

He was transfixed on the spot, leaving the nurse in shock. The man tried to plead with the nurse not to raise alarm,  in vain. She called fellow nurses who mulled the incident before watchmen were called in to whisk him away. Luckily for him, his wife came to his aid, confirming that indeed he was her husband and apologised on his behalf.

The matter was left in the hands of the hospital’s security guards to whom the man confessed how he had been going about his “feeding plan”.

The man was taunted and scoffed at by the watchmen as they flung him off the premises.