By Ezekiel Nabieu
There is hardly any occupation in the world that is without risks otherwise known as occupational hazards. Even primeval occupations like hunting and fishing had and are still having their own share of occupational hazards. One would have thought that with advances in science such hazards would have been minimized but this has not been the case.
I had written before and I am writing again that absence of occupation is not a rest. A mind vacant is a mind distressed. To this end people feel better and live better when they have something to do however distasteful. Still in this connection a wise man advised that everyone should be occupied in the highest employment of which his or her nature is capable and die with the consciousness that he or she has done his or her best. The quandary here is for one to know the best area in which one’s nature is capable. This is the area in which parents and guardians as well as teachers and guidance counsellors come in handy. They cajole and coerce the hapless children as the case may be.
Talent is the gift which God has given us secretly and which we reveal without perceiving it. No need for any braggadocio. It is domem dei (gift of God). This is why some people excel almost effortlessly. A clown, whatever he does may never pass for a gentleman. Excellence brings to mind historical figures like William Shakespeare, Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein etc. At home we had outstanding figures like Dr. Davidson Nicol, Bailor Barrie and now Sam King and Assistant Inspector-General Memuna Conteh to name only a few who have excelled in their various spheres of endeavour. By different methods different people excel. Hellen Keller, deaf, dumb and blind became a university graduate.
During the rebel war occupational hazards were suffered mainly by the police and journalists but this time round the police have remained as the constants while journalists have been replaced by the medical profession in a big way. This is not to say that other professions or occupations are not hazardous. Ancillary staff like drivers and even ward attendants and watchmen at the hospitals are all important. Our farmers too especially those in some of the most productive areas have suffered occupational hazards.
The Medical Profession
Who is in such a perfect health that he/she does not need the services of the medical profession? Nobody. Traditional or conventional that is our first attendant profession. The entire object of the lives of doctors should not be fees. Some would rather cure their patients and lose their fees than kill them and get it. We have known surgeons whose pseudonyms have been killers. There should not be more danger from the doctor than from the disease. In any case there are some reputable doctors in Freetown like Doctor Victor Willoughby, Dr. Russell and others. All our doctors have been overwhelmed to the extent that they can hardly cope with their work load.
It is a supreme act of nationalism for any Sierra Leonean doctor who stays around after the deaths of Dr. Khan and others. But bravery next to dare-devilry will never end in this world. Some citizens can really look at death in the eye and say “Come on if you are man enough.” Thus it was in the early days of missionary efforts to Sierra Leone that they continued to come on the heels of their compatriots who had died mainly of malaria.
Snoring Nurses
Nurses and doctors, CHOs share the same fate depending on interactions with patients. The no-touch approach is especially lugubrious. They are caught in the maelstrom between life and money. This does not argue that some health workers haven’t the mere love of humanity deep down in their hearts. Some nurses only go to work to collect their salaries. Others go to work and disappear after signing the register of attendance. Nurses are hired to watch the sick but some sleep sweetly and snore thereby waking up patients who need restful sleep. Isn’t that counterproductive?
The lot of the Police is not happy
Let us imagine for one moment a state without a police force to enforce law and order. British man, Keith Biddle’s Partnership Boards have gone a long way to establish liaison between the force and the public which could not be substitutes for the hard realities of facing the public. The force has been consistently tagged the worst in the Anti-Corruption Commission perception survey. The force is unpopular with the local citizenry because of the way they take bribes especially from drivers and litigants.
When all is said let us regard the force as a necessary evil to be subjected to constant amelioration. If anything, they are now more embattled during this outbreak than ever before. Their powers of arrest which is crucial to enforcement have been vitiated as never before. Aside from the arrests of non-Ebola citizens that has been ongoing, they are now tasked to enforce the burgeoning number of quarantined citizens. They are virtually to enforce the unenforceable. For one thing they cannot be on the watch in uncomfortable PPE gears for 24 hours. For another, they cannot take the risk of arresting a fleeing quarantined person without the gears.
A catch-22 situation is created. As a result the confined go in and out of their quarters as they like it. Some threaten to spit at the law enforcers or to embrace them. But others have suggested that such victims should be shot. Police personnel are also tasked with the arrest of criminals all over the place without Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
Farmers to be Poor
In developed countries like the United States, Australia and New Zealand, farmers are among the rich. Farmers in developing countries like Sierra Leone have been holding their own but this has suffered a mighty set back due to Ebola. Aside from the vagaries of the weather which had already been wreaking havoc the scourge has reduced our farmers especially in our bread basket area almost to nil. What a double occupational hazard! My last word to all these professionals is in the phrase of Shakespeare that states “Honour and shame from no condition rise, Act well your part, There all the honour lies.”
Bats and the cotton tree
Scientists have told us that bats are the chief hosts of the Ebola Virus Disease but little or no attention has been paid to their elimination. This brings me to the hosting of the hosts by the landmark Freetown Cotton Tree. One wonders whether their faeces which drop on passersby do not contain the Ebola virus.
The Cotton Tree has been regarded by some people as hosting a coven and therefore governments have superstitiously avoided its cutting down and using the spot for some other useful national purpose.
(C) Politico 07/10/14
