Cancer doesn’t care who you are; it visits both the poor and the rich

Kenyans are relieved to see the back of July.

It has been a painful month filled with sorrow and grief; the number of prominent deaths overtook the call from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations as the number one cause of panic among Kenyans.

Our nerves only calmed a little when someone looking like Jesus appeared in Kitengela and told us he had been sent from heaven. It was a sight we badly needed, but on the third day he was deported.

Experts have told us that some of these deaths could have been avoided had we been keen on early detection and periodical check-ups.

We now know that on top of fearing hot porridge and pre-election promises, Kenyans shudder at the mention of cancer.

Meanwhile, mortality rates are becoming scary and it is time we had a national discussion about it.

Cancer is a dehumanising disease. It strips you of your dignity, eats your flesh beyond recognition, and leaves your bones without windbreakers.

A cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy has the immunity of a snail inside a trough of salt — a slight cough from a bedside guest will trigger the alarm for the sterilisation of the room.

Cancer will drain your family resources, eat into your lifetime savings, make you dispose of your inheritance and if that isn’t enough humiliation, it will convert you into a beggar living from hand to mouth.

Cancer has started behaving like we owe it money, yet we all know that that title belongs to China.

Now that cancer has chosen the path of cowards by daggering us in the back, it is time for the government to show us what they’ve got by keeping us from harm’s way.

We need to know why the government is quieter than a graveyard yet cancer is killing us like flies.

Kenyans want to know how many cancer deaths it will take for the government to pronounce itself on this scourge, so that we start running the stopwatch and ring the bell once the target has been met.

It has taken prominent public figures to die of cancer for our parliamentarians to wake up from their slumber.

But, when ordinary Kenyans were dying of cancer they allowed cobwebs to grow on their eyes because something lied to them that their position vaccinated them against this terrible disease.

For a long time, our Members of Parliament looked the other way when regulatory agencies slept on the job, because they thought they were immune to the toxins that came from the contraband they allowed to enter our country.

We have parliamentary watchdog committees responsible for looking into the health of the food we eat; the content of the water we drink, and the quality of the air we breathe.

But, they watched as our meat got injected with poisonous toxins; industrial waste dumped in water sources; and rickety vehicles licensed to choke us with murderous smoke.

Government regulatory officials have to look Kenyans in the face and apologise for letting us down. Our MPs have allowed personal greed to take precedence over public good.

They did not make collective noise when Kenyans were sold toxic sugar contaminated with hazardous mercury. They picked sides when Kenyans complained of buying maize full of aflatoxin.

Greed has seen our MPs look the other way as questionable white rice got packaged in brown sugar containers.

When pictures of someone washing vegetables with sewage water popped on the internet, we did not hear our MPs make noise because it affected poor people and they aren’t poor.

We have now learnt that public officials can get away with letting toxins get onto our dinner tables, but they cannot hide from the diseases that come with a leaking regulatory regime.

Cancer did not begin to kill us last month. The government owns the hospitals where cancer patients seek treatment and they’ve a disease prevalence graph that beeps on their screens every time a new case is reported.

They have been sitting on this data as Kenyans die because they’re otherwise occupied in increasing their salaries and fighting political enemies.

When doctors alert the public that our hospitals are becoming dumping grounds for sick people waiting to die, they have been summarily dismissed for embarrassing the Ministry of Health and thrown into prison for fighting for patients’ rights.

When patients are filmed sleeping on hospital floors as they await medical examination, no government official acts on the cases because poverty is supposed to be silent even in the face of humiliation.

When you live in leafy suburbs and eat food from your kitchen garden, something lies to you that you’re exempted from consuming carcinogens, forgetting that we breathe the same air and choke on the same dust your helicopters blow every time you burn air miles making false promises.

We now know that cancer doesn’t care who you are or where you live. Cancer visits the humble and the arrogant alike.

Those who thought cancer was a disease for the poor are now weeping more than the bereaved, and rightfully so.