Stop TB Partnership

Doctors can also become TB patients

By Peter Ngola - Wote Youth Development Project (Kenya)

DR MM is no ordinary doctor, she combines well brains and beauty .In fact if you meet her before you meet her secretary, you would mistake her for the receptionist.

DR MM is the doctor in charge of the districts level 2 and 3 health facilities of Makueni District Hospital where over 1000 TB patients are treated . As a member of the District stakeholder's forum and TB Ambassador of Hope attached to Makueni District Hospital, we regular meet with Dr. MM in many occasions in and out of the hospital since she came to Makueni in 2010 to take over from another familiar lady doctor. Interestingly as we talk about TB, which is my passionate subject, it has never occurred to me that she had at once suffered from TB, too.

"Last year, I was a practicing doctor at Chuka district hospital", she said. "I was a general physician attending all kind of patients. I think it was while practicing there that I contracted TB from one of the patients that I was diagnosing. Of course as a doctor, I thought I had a general idea of what I was suffering from. I was convinced that I had either pneumonia or some other bacterial infection but TB with all my knowledge and experience was least in my mind. Denial is not confined to non professionals", she added.

Dr MM said she had all the symptoms: sweating, fever and of course eating was a problem due to loss of appetite. To make it worse she was coughing and that is the reason she was convinced that she had bronchitis.

After continuously taking antibiotics for a number of weeks without improvement .Dr MM decided reluctantly to go for the TB clinic where she was referred by another doctor.

The diagnosis came as a shock and disbelief. "To be honest, I was stigmatized. All kinds of thoughts crossed my mind and even now after being cured, I do not find it easy to reveal that I had suffered from TB apart from for a few friends. I went through the treatment religiously not because I wanted to but because of my professional background and the knowledge I had about drug resistance. The side effects were devastating, these included nausea, numbness of legs, sight problems. I remembered one day I went visiting and ran out of drugs and had to lie to the DTLC that a friend needed a dose just for one night. "Being a doctor, I had no problem getting that dose but it showed how I was too stigmatized to accept my state", she added. "I chose to be picking my drugs from another district hospital more than an hour away from my station because the nurse working in that particular clinic really mishandled me at a time when I was really down before she learnt that I was a doctor. She was very quick to look at my HIV status results because of the misconception that TB=HIV. I suppose we, health workers, are actually the biggest hindrance to the fight against stigma I learnt." Dr MM lamented. "I however received a lot of support from the doctors at Makueni hospital to whom I told about my illness and they would pass through my house just to make sure that I had eaten and taken my drugs. Some people are lucky that God will always provide some nice people to look after them and I had that luck".

Today Dr MM is glad that she finished her treatment and is fully cured, she commented. Time does not allow Dr MM to be fully involved in advocacy work on TB but having suffered this disease, she has a soft spot for any patient who is having TB suffered from it herself.

I later asked her if she would be comfortable, working with TB patients or in a TB setup and this is what she said, "I don’t mind. I am not afraid of TB any more".