Untold Stories From Jamaica’s ER – Respect Due
Published: Sunday | July 29, 2012 5 Comments

Porters at the Kingston Public Hospital rush an injured man for treatment during the 2010 West Kingston incursion by members of the security forces. – File
Being a porter in a public hospital has several parallels with being a reporter at a newspaper.

Both jobs don’t pay well, when one considers the amount of work to be done, and the two jobs can be thankless tasks.

Working as a porter or janitor in any major hospital is not easy, especially when the institution is ailing like the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH).

I learnt this first-hand while working at the KPH for one week as a supervisor with Lamasa Limited.

After just a couple of days on the job, my life was threatened by a one-legged man sporting dreadlocks.

He was obviously upset that the porters were not, in his estimation, moving as fast as they should to get his loved one into the emergency room.

Apparently, she had collapsed under the weight of the news that her father had just died.

The situation was indeed sad and my heart went out to the family and friends of the dead man.

I understood the frustration of the man with the dreadlocks because when a loved one is ill every passing second seems like a tick of eternity.

But what was unconscionable was the expression of his frustration.

The man began to threaten the lives of the group of porters that left their station at the entrance of the Accident and Emergency (A&E) unit and went several metres to where the young lady was to get her the help that she needed.

marked for harm

According to him, the porters’ slowness in responding to the emergency situation warranted him ‘marking our faces’ and doing us harm when we were leaving work.

I had to ask the porters not to respond. But at least one porter was very upset because situations like these unfold far too frequently.

He recalled several similar incidents, one of which included a policeman who used an expletive at him because in his bid to get the cop to the emergency room quickly the wheelchair bounced the door.

The porter insisted that patients and their relatives and friends should show some respect to porters. I agree.

Patients and visitors to the hospital should show some more respect to the porters and janitors. They are people with feelings just like any of us. The stories we shared on that little bench in the A&E testified to this.

During conversations about various topics, including family matters, two of the porters showed me photographs of their children. Both men were obviously proud fathers.

If there were no porters and janitors at the KPH, we would not want to take our relatives to that hospital, even if services being provided are free.

Here’s why. The hospital would not be clean and that would give rise to all sorts of illnesses besides the ones that the patients were seeking treatment for.

When you take a relative or friend to the hospital in a case of emergency the anxiety might cause you not to think clearly, but at all times you should remember that without a porter your loved one would not be taken to the appropriate area quickly to receive treatment.

While working at KPH, my substantive duty was to supervise the porters and janitors and to ensure that they complete their assigned tasks.

I was also expected to pitch in and get my hands dirty if no one could be found or if everybody else was busy. I did.

But I mostly carried out the functions assigned to the porter – taking patients to various sections of the hospital for treatment using wheelchairs and stretchers.

I also helped to properly position a patient on her bed to prevent her from getting bedsores.

After just a week, I developed a lot more respect for porters and janitors and the work they do (please note that I said more because I firmly believe that we should show the utmost respect to those who serve us).

Their job function is important and they should be paid more for doing it.

Unjust pay

Porters are paid $9,700 fortnightly. After deductions they take home approximately $9,106. That appears grossly unjust.

The take-home pay is practically all they are entitled to, as the job is void of some basic benefits.

This too appears to be a sick, sick injustice that should be remedied with dispatch.

Truth be told, as in any profession, I did come across some porters and janitors who shirked their responsibilities.

But those dodgers of duty are numbered in the minority. Most of the men and women in blue are hard workers and epitomise what it means to be a blue-collar worker.

I was particularly impressed by some porters who treated the patients with a commendable level of care.

The reassuring conversations they had with the patients were just a joy to observe.

Based on conversations with the workers, the disrespect porters and janitors so often face also comes from within. They complained that some of the doctors and nurses treat them with disdain.

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A 62-YEAR-OLD Gokwe man has come out in the open and claimed ownership of a goblin which has been terrorising women in his village by taking off their panties at night while they were asleep. The man, Mr Lumeck Ncube of Village Charisekera, under Chief Njelele, made the startling revelations at a cleansing ceremony in the village on Wednesday.

The cleansing ceremony, conducted by an inyanga from Hwange District in Matabeleland North and a prophet from an apostolic sect, was attended by Chief Njelele, hundreds of villagers and journalists from different media organisations.

Mrs Shupikai Matiya shows her pant she identified from the 26 that were found dumped in a bushy area after their owners mysteriously lost them while sleeping recently. Looking on (far right) is Chief Njelele and his wife. Inset, Mr Lumeck Ncube

Chief Njelele had invited the traditional healer commonly known as a tsikamutanda from Hwange District and the prophet in a bid to bring “peace” to his area after 26 women woke up recently and found themselves without panties.

Chief Njelele had sought clearance from the police to have his area “cleansed” follow-ing the bizarre incident.

It also emerged during the cleansing ceremony that the mysterious goblin had been tormenting women in the villages since 2004.

The ceremony was characterised by drama and chilly witchcraft stories as villagers took turns to stand before the inyanga and the prophet.

Mr Ncube, who became the 25th villager to appear before the tsikamutanda and the prophet, then confessed that he owned the “menacing” goblin, which he claimed to have acquired long ago to enhance his luck.

Mr Ncube told the puzzled crowd that the goblin had, however, turned “hostile and weird” to a point of going around sleeping with women.

A police officer who had been invited to the occasion to maintain order at one time moved in to restore order after some villagers whose wives fell victim to the goblin’s “sex” escapades threatened to beat up Mr Ncube.

The inyanga, who was accompanied by six aides, was forced with his team to temporarily stop the witch hunting ceremony as they accompanied Mr Ncube to his homestead to “capture” the goblin which shared a bedroom with one of Mr Ncube’s sons.

There was more drama as the villagers jostled to have a glimpse of the decorated goblin after the tsikamutandas brought it before the crowd.

The goblin, which looked like a living creature, was wearing a pair of blue female panties, which village head Charisekera’s wife, Ms Silvia Marumbe, claimed to be hers.

Ms Marume claimed during the event that she lost her panties in mysterious circumstances in 2004.

The goblin was later burnt before the crowd.

In an interview after the burning of the goblin, Mr Ncube said he was happy that he was now a free man, saying the creature had been giving him sleepless nights for a long time.

Mr Ncube said he bought the goblin in Chakari near Kadoma in 1983 when he was still working in Kwekwe.

“When I bought this goblin, my purpose was to try and have luck in my life. I also wanted to get promoted at my work as well as acquiring wealth but when I later retired, I then learnt that the goblin had not performed to my expectations,” he said.

Mr Ncube said he started having problems with the goblin after he tried to get rid of it through inyangas.

He said different inyangas he consulted told him that the goblin was now “weird” as it was going around homesteads looking for women to “make love” to.

“As it is I did not know that this goblin has been taking away the villagers’ panties until today. What I only knew was that the goblin was at my home, but we were no longer on good terms,” said Mr Ncube who at that point looked down in shame.

Chief Njelele said he decided to invite the tsikamutandas following an outcry from his subjects who were mysteriously losing their panties.

“Following the mysterious incident that saw 26 females missing their panties, I then consulted the police who then advised me to take the necessary measures. With the outcry from the affected females, I then quickly moved in and said the only way was to invite these tsikamutandas. I know Government does not recommend using these inyangas but there was nothing I could do when faced with such a dilemma. I also invited an apostolic church prophet to assist in the cleansing, which we witnessed today. No one was charged for being found in possession of these things like the accused,” said Chief Njelele.

“This is what we expect, not a situation where these inyangas would charge villagers a lot of money.”

Chief Njelele said he was happy that the culprit who had been wreaking havoc in the area had been identified.

He warned villagers against engaging in witchcraft.

“People in my area need to behave and desist from engaging in witchcraft. Because of this strange missing panties saga, my area is now known the world over for the wrong reasons, which is a shame. I therefore want to warn my subjects that we will deal with the culprits decisively at our traditional courts,” he said.

During the ceremony, eight women from Charisekera and Matanganyika villages positively identified their panties, which mysteriously went missing and were now in the custody of Chief Njelele.

The panties were found dumped in a bushy area under village head Pauro about two weeks ago.

Godliness: Train yourself to be godly

I know how to turn a handle on a grain mill. As a matter of fact, as big, heavy and fancy as our mill is, it didn’t even come with a manual, just a simple flyer with a blown-up picture of its component parts. Building a two-story barn…well, that is something I don’t know how to do. Even with well-laid architectural plans, I’m going to need some help. Better yet, I’m more suited to being the help, not running the show.

As it stands, my husband and I are the barn-building helpers, working with some friends with whom we share a cow who needs a roof over her head. Against great odds, the ground has been cleared, the foundation poured and set, and the frame is going up. I am deeply enjoying the process, observing how each part is crucial to the integrity of the structure as a whole. It would not be an overstatement to say that each piece is individually handled, individually measured, individually cut, and individually leveled.

The aspect of a large structure remaining plumb is critical. “Plumb” is vertical, and must be in direct relation to the foundation, which is horizontal. If each piece is not plumb to the foundation, the entire structure would be off balance. In fact, the degree to which a building is off becomes magnified as the structure rises. Picture any angle that is not a right angle, where two lines meet at the vertex (the point) and they are close. But once you set off from that point and continue on in a straight line, you can see that the lines grow farther and farther apart. Imagine that difference in a large edifice and you can see a building that won’t have a sound future.

But what does a builder do if he knows the foundation is flawed? Our foundation is a concrete slab, prepared as well as possible, but with a slight bias, a leaning to the southwest. You can see it when it rains—water pools in one corner. Fortunately for us, our foreman, Darren, is skilled in construction and has all the necessary tools to complete the project successfully. As we worked to connect the vertical posts to the second floor foundation (the 2 x 4’s that lay horizontal to the ground floor and will hold the remainder of our barn) we used a transit, a three-legged instrument designed to correct the flaw of our unlevel concrete foundation by making sure that from there on up we were well-balanced. I can’t explain the mathematical exactness of it to you, but I get the point: With a biased foundation, the whole building would continue to follow that bias to its eventual collapse, but correcting those imperfections and putting our barn back on track would lead to a beautiful, solid structure that will endure for years.

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EWAN MACRAE FROM FLAVA SQUAD ENTERTAINMENT PASSED AWAY…WILL UPDATE SOON!