Agony for girl isolated over rare TB strain

By RAWLINGS OTIENO

NAIROBI, KENYA: For four months now, six-year-old Winnie Wangeci has lived alone in a secluded ward at the Kenyatta National Hospital. She is going to live in this ward for five more months because she has to finish a nine-month treatment regime for a deadly strain of tuberculosis known as Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB).

When it is mealtime, a masked server puts the food on the small table next to her bed and walks away. Wangeci has learnt to eat without asking questions. When she is done with the meal, she places the plates back on the table and stays on her bed. There is not much to do. She looks at the ceiling or walls of the ward. And somehow, time passes.

Occasionally her parents come to visit. But generally, her only companion is loneliness.

Wangeci is one of the patients the world is reaching to assist in meeting this year’s theme for World Tuberculosis Day — ‘Reach the three million’.

The Isolation Ward, where Wangeci has been hospitalised, was created last year to deal with MDR-TB.

PULL THE DOOR

The ward that stands about 600 metres from the main entrance of the hospital is quiet and those who pass by the door move quickly, perhaps thinking that they can contract the contagious disease caused by bacteria.

We set out to talk to some of the patients secluded at the hospital on World TB Day marked on Monday.

On the door it is boldly inscribed: ‘Don’t pull the door. Please close the door behind you’. After several minutes, a nurse opens. The fact that she is masked makes it difficult for us to communicate.

The nurse, Mary Muyodi, closes the door behind her and removes the mask. Once we introduce ourselves and explain our mission, she takes us through the procedure. We must put on the protective gear if we are to enter the rooms of the MDR-TB patients.

“The TB bacterium is highly contagious and so we must put on the masks and gloves before we enter the room. One thing you must remember, always close the door behind you,” Muyodi cautions.

Muyodi says due to the nature of the disease, the room has no ventilation or any air openings. This is because the bacteria is supposed to be contained lest it spreads.

“If you look around you will notice that there is no ventilation or any opening. No air is allowed to leave the room. The room is fitted with air conditioners,” she says.  Once inside the ward, we meet Wangeci. There is a mask hanging on the wall, a table is placed next with foodstuffs and the silence in the room speaks volumes of the loneliness that the little girl goes through.

Wangeci walks briskly from the bathrooms towards her room, and the unusually high number of people near her room makes her uncomfortable.

The nurse tells us that Wangeci has been in the ward all alone since her parents are not allowed to frequently visit her, because of the high risk involved.

“The parents are not here, they only come to visit occasionally. That is the rule of this ward and when they come, they must put on a mask and other protective gear,” Muyodi explains.

NUMEROUS INJECTIONS

Just one look at little Wangeci and one gets a feeling of the disease and its effects—which are evident on her face and body.

The nurse tries to talk to her, but all Wangeci can do is just smile back as she climbs onto her bed and rolls over facing the wall. The nurse explains to us that we cannot get much information from the young girl who has to contend with numerous tablets and injections every day to cure her of the illness.

Walking past every door, the alarm bells ring.  The nurse tells us that we have opened the doors. The rooms for the MDR-TB patients are well lit and covered and no one is allowed in without protective gear.

We walk past the doors of the female wards and every time a door is opened, the normally silent rooms become noisy and we suddenly look like intruders.