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EPISODE 1
‘Dokita! Fatai’s leg is moving.’ The woman exclaimed in wonder. ‘He has not walked ever since I gave birth to him and this is about the third time I’m bringing him to you, his leg moved! It moved!’
I smiled and said nothing.
‘It’s like you don’t understand. I have been taking him to Baba Faniran since he was two when that witch of a nurse who wanted to initiate my only son gave him an injection that took away his malaria but left him unable to walk.’
The woman continued with her apparent Yoruba tongue struggling to pronounce the English words at each instance.
I changed the electrode placement; still along the course of the sciatic nerve, looked up and smiled and before I could call Jack Robinson, she had started to sing:
‘emi la o ni yosi
Emi la o ni yosi
Ba se fe kori
Bee na lori
Emi la oni yosi’
I opened my mouth wide agape. I thought this only happened in Nigerian Yoruba movies but coming to serve as the first Physiotherapist ever in a rural area as theirs totally changed my mindset.
The little boy of five who was presenting with sciatica did not even make matters better. He lay on the bed laughing with each contraction of his lower limb as though it was ticklish.
Where I come from, in the city where I trained, children cry with such electrode placements and it was weird that he was laughing.
It was even worse that everyone kept calling me doctor since I just finished my first degree in physiotherapy and had not proceeded for my masters not to talk of a doctorate degree and I couldn’t help but think of how people will never recognize physiotherapists as autonomous professionals if people keep calling us doctors.
Sometimes, I wonder if it is merely because of the lack of attention to what is written on my coat or merely the inability to pronounce the words ‘PHYSIOTHERAPY’.
If the people of Nigeria are not aware of the word in itself, it is only consequential that nobody knows our ‘specific role’ amongst other health professionals.
Okay! Some actually think they know and left to them; I am just one of the numerous bone setters that work in the National Orthopedic Hospital.
Bone setter?? Why do I feel like shouting ‘pathetic’?
Why I insist that calling a physiotherapist a bone setter is pathetic, I’m dishing out a professional advice to as many that think that’s what we do to personally look up the world on google to clear all your doubts. Done? We can proceed…
Just so you don’t think this is a ‘who is a physiotherapist to a Nigerian’ article, I’ll continue my story.
After a stressful day at work and incorporating the role of a health promoter with my normal clinical skills (which is normal anyway), I signed out for the day and left for home only to meet Mama Fatai in front of my door step and what I saw next left me confused. If I ever thought my girlfriend was the best at surprising people, Mama Fatai was definitely giving her a run for it.
‘Dokita’ she said dancing to the left and to the right while trying to ensure that the rope that secured the goat to her hand stayed secure.
Why was Mama Fatai; the mother of the paediatric patient I saw earlier today with a goat, at my doorstep with a male goat (the Yoruba people call it obuko). I stood still like my leg had been glued to a spot and thought of fleeing but she wasn’t going to let me; she was already coming towards me.
‘Dokita! I usually give a goat every month in appreciation to Baba Faniran for the efforts he was making in consulting the oracles concerning what the witch nurse did to Fatai. As for tht aunty Nurse, you see ehn, she is now a mad woman on the street of the city she came from. Ehn. Bee ni o’ she said using both English and Yoruba language (of which I understand only little) to communicate with me.
‘Ah mogbe!’ I exclaimed. At least, this was something my friends and I used for fun when we were in school.
‘Dokita! You have entered into good things. You see this goat… this is just for appreciation right now but if my Fatai walks soon, this girl over here—Sikira, omo to fine’ she said dragging a slim girl with six tribal marks on each side of her face who I barely noticed before now
‘She will be all yours.’ She said shaking her body vigorously.
I could only open my mouth as I was utterly confused. I had just spent one week in this rural community and I had no friends around. Fatai’s mum tied the goat to my doorstep, took Sikira by the hand and left.
Then a call came in. It was Ituoha; my Edo girlfriend.
‘You’ve not called all day. It’s your first week and you’ve totally forgotten me.
How am I sure you really care about me?’
I felt really weak at this point.
‘Itoah, I am coming back to Lagos’ I said, almost crying.
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