Hi. I have a new post for you today. I know, it has been months since we last spoke. I have been up and about, promoting better health, one uncircumcised man at a time. Yes, i finally completed a paid internship (which is saying a lot considering how messed up the government one was), and things finally started working out for me. Who knew?
When i first convinced myself to settle for Public Health, i believed i was going to make a huge impact. I would like to blame all those online articles for the false hope they gave me. I am pretty sure i am not alone. We are so many prawns and pawns of the system.
Yes, today i can proudly tell you how the system failed us. This post is one in a series of posts about how public health has taken a downhill spiral in Kenya based on my own own experience.
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Public Health, or Environmental Health, is a rather huge, and hugely marketable course. I just want to make that clear from the start. Why would i say that?
1.) PHOs are always geared towards making good health a benefit by preventing diseases,
2.) PHOs are trained in a wide curriculum that has ties to engineering, environment studies, sanitation, law, immunology, biochemistry, mathematics, language, and research, to name but a few,
3.) PHOs are a "jack of all trades." Since their courses are multi-disciplinary, PHOs are more often than not good at more than two things. Personally, i am good at NCDs, Entomology and anything involving observation and record keeping.
There are other benefits which i shall not name at the moment. Reason being, i shall keep talking about it and get lost. Completely.
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During my first year in undergraduate, a lot of my classmates were a bit confused on what their role was to be. Thankfully, our lecturers were only too glad to advice us on where we were headed in case we chose to be PHOs.
Fast forward to 2015, my graduation year. After all the stress school piled on us, we finally made it out. We walked into the world hoping things were better, but they had progressively gotten worse. This was especially for those of us who came from high school and joined the programme.
I remember trying to get an internship within the county i was raised was so hard and everyone came up with the most ridiculous list of requirements, inclusive of health insurance and transcripts and a letter from the school. These were requirements requested during attachment. There was going to be the need to reapply every 3-4 months. Of course there would be no pay.
I remember calling my dad and i told him with tears in my eyes that the application was going to be unsuccessful. I then went on to rattle the entire list of requirements to him on the phone. He was as baffled as i was. The next thing we did was attempt another county. I decided to try the nearby county. I was given the phone number of a former student in the university i studied at. It was the most chilling and awkward call i had ever had. I was actually on my way to see her when she picked up the phone and spoke to me the way she did. I immediately got off and headed back home after that encounter.
At that time i was working two jobs, one in hotel, the other in entertainment. The responses i had received had been discouraging. Either way, i still wanted to do my internship, so i decided to try another nearby county. I went there and found my way to the county public health offices, then the urban public health offices.
The third county i visited had hosted us during our second field attachment. They were warm and receptive and they advised me to start the application from Nairobi. That was exactly what i did. I was among the first to apply for the internship in 2015/2016. At first i was told to bring my certificate proving i had actually completed school. I had to wait till i cleared to do that.
After four rejected applications, i finally got Trans-Nzoia. I was so happy about it. My parents were skeptical. However, i was too excited to see ahead of my triumph for that moment.
Join me on my next blog post to continue the story. I look forward to your feedback.
Sincerely,
Me.
