Medics step up fight against botched circumcision

By Hellen Miseda

It is August again, when the Bukusu conduct mass circumcision for adolescent boys as a rite of passage from boyhood to manhood.

Even as the practice continues in the traditional setting, the Government is strongly pushing for the cut to be done at health facilities where it is safer.

National sexually transmitted control programmes (Nascop) head Nicholas Muraguri says 40 per cent of boys circumcised traditionally end up in public hospitals with complications.

"We receive many cases of boys whose organs have been severely mutilated. Some come bleeding excessively and some have septicaemia (severe infection) stemming from circumcision using unsterilised knives by unprofessionally. That is why we are totally against the cut being carried out at home or in the bush," explains the doctor.

Apparently, death, mutilated organs, severe infection, haemorrhage do not scare off Bukusu boys and they would rather face the traditional circumciser rather than a trained health professional just to be labelled ‘a real man’.

"If you undergo the cut in the traditional setting you are a real man and you will get many children," says Wekesa Wabomba, a resident of Naitiri in Bungoma.

David Wepukhulu, also from Naitiri, puts it bluntly: "A complete man has to face the knife."

Seasoned traditional circumciser Erastus Wesonga, who has plied his trade for more than 20 years says, "All these old men you see around have undergone the process the traditional way and they are still alive. So what gospel is this the Government is preaching that men should go to the hospital?"

More ‘macho’

Wesonga says boys who are cut traditionally are more ‘macho’ than those who go to hospital. It is this view the Government is determined to change.

"We want to convince people that the world has changed and you do not need to face the knife at home to be a real man," says Dr Muraguri.

The doctor says the Government has put its foot down because quacks have infiltrated the practice and have opened fake clinics where they do the cut at ‘affordable fees’.

"We have discovered hospital cleaners, lab technicians and other staff are going from house to house offering cheap services. Such quacks injure the boys. We have closed such centres," says the medic.

When the cut is done at home or in the bush, the initiates are also at a greater risk of contracting HIV because some circumcisers do not sterilise their knives properly and at times one is used to cut many initiates.

To spread its safe option gospel, the Government has established several circumcision centres in Bungoma District where it offers the cut free of charge.

In addition, the State has reduced the cost of circumcision in hospital from between Sh500 and Sh1,000 to Sh200.

However, many locals still prefer the traditional practitioner route because it is cheaper. One can also pay for the services in kind or with goods.