A Kenyan nurse is shunned and harassed after she prepped a patient for a Coronavirus test while on nightshift. The nurse, by the name Eunice Mwabili, says the patient was handled professionally. Eunice wore personal protective gear while dealing with the patient, who was under isolation at the hospital. By the next morning, her neighbors and friends in Nairobi, begun avoiding her, fearing she was infected with the virus. It is, however, unclear who disclosed the information that she organized to have the patient tested. Also, both her name and number were uncovered on social media. The patient tested negative, but the news did not help much as the damage was done. Later she started receiving phone calls from strangers. Some wanted to know where she worked – and anxious friends curious to find out her status.
“To Kenyans out here, I was by now a COVID suspect. It really affected me. The story was even on the media TV,” Ms. Mwabili said.
A neighbor shouted to her that she hears she is the one attending to Corona patients. She is not the first Kenyan who has faced coronavirus-linked stigma. Even some of the recovered cases have found it hard to be accepted back into their communities. Recently Mutahi Kagwe, Health Minister spoke about a victim who had fully recovered but was denied the chance re-join their local choir. The ministry says others have found that after leaving the hospital, even families have been stigmatized.
Nurse Suffers Cyberbullying.
And the fear is universal. I contacted a man to find out about quarantine life but refused to tell me with fear of stigma afterward. He had been sent to quarantine for 14 days after people from the same apartment he lives in tested positive. However, he never contracted the virus. Days before the first Corona incident, an MP’s Xenophobic message on Facebook in February went viral. He told members of his constituency to avoid Chinese people.
Brenda Cherotich was among the first people who contracted the disease here in Kenya. She was interviewed on television and about her experience with the virus. The government wanted her to be a beacon of hope to show other victims that they, too, could get well. Instead, a few minutes later, she was subjected to cyberbullying by Kenyans. A few days later, medics left a 27-years old mam from Mombasa to die in his hour of need fearing he had the Coronavirus.
‘I Was Scared To Go Out.’
For Ms. Mwabili, it all began when Davis Muturi walked into a private Catholic Church-run hospital where she worked in March. A chef who returned from the US a week earlier aged 40 walked in. He had gone into self-isolation, asking his family to move in with relatives as a precaution.
“I had a one-month-old baby who I had not seen before, and my wife was surprised and worried that I was sending the family away and had no interest in seeing them. But after explaining the situation, she understood that it was for the good of them,” he said.
Seven days later, he went to the hospital for a test because he was scared by the stories on social media about the virus. The way social media put it is like everyone who came into the country had it, he said. Therefore, He wanted to be sure he didn’t have it. But later after he did the test, his contacts and name were leaked. People said that he allegedly had the virus. Even after the tests came out negative, he was scared of leaving the house, scared of being told he is trying to spread the “virus.”
He reached out to the nurse to find out how their information had been leaked. She told him that she had no clue. Also, colleagues were making a fuss of why she has not isolated herself despite her not being positive.
Leaked police memo
Ms. Mwabili points out a visit by the police on the same evening of Mr. Muturi’s check-up. The police requested information about COVID-19 patients due to an ongoing investigation. It looks like a police memo about their visit was leaked.
“I don’t know how my name and details, as well as that of my patient,” she said.
The hospital complained about the leak, and the police said the matter is under investigation. Ms. Mwabili says what made it worse was after the leak; she went down with tonsillitis for a week.
“When I resumed, some of my workmates were asking, ‘Did you quarantine?’… You can just suspect what was going through their heads.”
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