One of those is Dr Sabrina Kitaka, a paediatrician at Mulago hospital, but somehow, she managed to regularly make it to the hospital to attend to the huge numbers of patients in her ward.
On that afternoon, a 999 police patrol brought with it an unconscious person at the hospital’s casualty ward after finding him lying helpless on the streets. Without any identity on him, he was tagged an ‘unknown male.’
This classification is not unusual because many mad people, drug abusers and drunkards are often picked and dropped at the hospital. Some reach in dire conditions and die but this time, the unknown male adult looked quite young.
Dr Ruth Grace Babirye, an intern at the hospital, identified him as a child and transferred him to the children’s emergency unit for resuscitation. He was later transferred to Stanfield ward where Dr Kitaka and a special team took over. But they could not ask him anything because he had passed out.
“On further evaluation, he was found to have ingested a rat poison and he was lucky to be brought here before the situation got worse,” Dr Kitaka told The Observer early this month. “While in the ward, he had a turbulent episode of all forms of hypers; hyper secretions, hyper glycemia, hyper emesis, but he has got over all this turbulence.”
NARROW SURVIVAL
She added that when the boy woke up from his comatose, he initially did not understand why he was in the hospital nor did he recognize the people around him. This was ET’s start of a new life. Stanfield ward would become his home for the next six weeks.
With more engagement, he developed trust with the caregivers and opened up about the last few minutes before losing his senses. He told Dr Kitaka and team that the poison had been intentionally placed in his piece of bread by his jealous friends who are also street children.
He eked out a living collecting and selling scrap metal while his usual source of food was scrounging around restaurants and hotels. The lockdown and its curfew made the struggle for survival for street children even harder in the absence of leftover food from eateries, especially when movement is restricted.
On the streets, possessing any asset or money comes with immense risks associated with insecurity. One always has to be alert, something that is quite impossible for a street child that can barely defend himself from gangs.
ET intimated to Dr Kitaka that he has been a street child since the age of six. “He said he started his street life in Mubende town, following a disagreement with his parents. In 2016, his close buddy wooed him to Kampala,” she noted.
However, in spite of ET’s full recovery, Dr Kitaka could not discharge him because he had nowhere to go. Meanwhile, the ward team members; Dr Kitaka, Dr Nestor Mbabazi, Dr Eddie Mworozi and Dr Victor Musiime engaged with various authorities to place him in an appropriate home.
He said he is 12 years but looks much younger, considering that he is still losing his milk teeth.
“He could not remember his parents’ names, their whereabouts nor the village where he hails,” she says. “We kept on interacting with the social services department and the Mulago police station probation officer so that he could be relocated to an appropriate home, but the Covid-19 lockdown complicated the situation.”
It became apparent that ET would have to stay a little longer at the hospital but within no time, he had found a way to adapt to the situation.
“While with us, he acquired a passion to read and quickly understand the health service industry. He willingly helped at every opportunity. He was polite and confident. Whenever he saw a crying toddler, ET offered himself to carry and do the babysitting without being prompted,” says Dr Kitaka.
So impressive was ET that he started dreaming of becoming a paediatrician. “The speed at which he learns was remarkable and he would often sit through the UBC classes on the ward television. He was a darling of the mothers and the health professionals.”
However, Dr Kitaka soon realized that despite ET’s awe-inspiring actions at Stanfield ward, the ultimate dream was to find him a home, and a loving parent who can reintegrate him into the normal world.
BREAKTHROUGH
It was at this point that Dr Kitaka made an appeal on Facebook to a well-wisher willing to give ET a new lease of life as a parent. Within a few hours, Dr Monica Musenero Masanza, the Senior Presidential Advisor on Covid-19, offered to take him without blinking.
“I don’t have much time on social media but that day I had just got up when Dr Sabrina’s Facebook post popped up…when I read the story, I immediately replied; can I have him?,” she says. “When I went to visit him at the hospital, we bonded straightaway…I saw him as my young baby boy.”
Dr Musenero went through the formalities with the Probation office at KCCA, did health checks and three days later, ET packed his few belongings he acquired from Good Samaritans and left to live with Dr Musenero’s family.
“He is really a good boy, very bright and has fitted in very well at home. He does not seem to remember much about his past before he went to the street, but he is eager to learn, he is helpful and has integrated with the rest of the people at home,” she adds. “He has not displayed any of the vices associated with street children but instead he listens to advice, respects everyone and we are really privileged to have him in the family.”
Dr Musenero has a two-fold view of taking up ET, especially relating to her experience with street children and in her role as a Covid-19 frontline fighter.
“I fight Covid-19 to give people hope in life and it is the same story for this young boy. Earlier in my career when I had just graduated at Makerere in 1992, I volunteered to work with street children. With my friend from church, we rehabilitated them, taught them literacy, won their trust, and reunited them with their parents,” she says.
“We would mobilize money to give them a hot meal at least once a day at Deliverance Church. To me, that was a good time to give the children hope; so, when I read ET’s story, I knew I could give him a home and show him love. It is the same thing…that is why I work; to save people from Ebola, from Covid-19 and so on.
THE FUTURE
Dr Musenero has no doubt about ET’s future and is confident she will do everything possible to see him fulfill his dream of becoming a pediatrician.
“His [ET] story is touching but not unique because I have helped others before…even now I have many others, but they are not in my home. So, I just send them school fees,” she says.
“However, I decided to bring ET home because he has a vision and our home is a vision shaper. We encourage people to become the best they can be; so, he is going to achieve his goals and we are going to support him all the way. I am glad there are already other well-wishers who called me willing to lend him support. That is great, but if there were none, I see him as my son and if he has a need it is my responsibility to provide it.”
As for ET himself, he could not have dreamt of a better blessing in disguise when the boys who tried to kill him unknowingly opened big doors for him.
“I have a long list of people to thank that I cannot exhaust but I believe God made me go through this experience so that I can be an example to others,” he says. “I feel so lucky and this is my only opportunity to redeem myself.”
When he had just regained his senses at Mulago, ET said his dream while on the street was to make enough money and head back to Mubende, find his relatives, go back to school and one day buy a big truck to ferry the scrap metal but he now has a different goal after his recent experience.
“I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t for the good treatment and care I received at Mulago and for that reason I want to study and become a paediatrician so that I can also save lives in future,” he says.
For now, Dr Musenero is contemplating to take ET for formal primary school education and already, his legion of well-wishers raised about Shs 2m for his new laptop to help fast-track his studies.