I am scared of dying.
But I am more scared of living.
Life is not what I expected!
These are the painful words that were left behind by Dr Lydia Wahura. Dr Lydia Wahura was last week found dead in the back seat of her vehicle after she committed suicide.
As questions rise on why a promising young doctor opted to end her life, it is now emerging that Dr Wahura may have succumbed to an intense, sustained bout of depression emanating majorly from her work as a doctor, and the feeling that she was not doing enough to save lives.
In one instance on her social media, Dr Wahura narrated how three babies had died because the hospital did not have the necessary facilities to save them. She also lamented how in some cases, she was forced to close patients’ abdomen using a torchlight.
“I had to close people’s abdomen’s under torchlight..or had to let three babies die in one afternoon because I didn’t have what I needed to save them,”
she said.
Dr Wahura in one post narrated how she had left a well-paying job because it did not make her feel like a doctor. She left the well-paying government job for a private job that paid less “because it was slowly killing her to work as a precursor to the morgue instead of [working] as a doctor”.
Heartbreaking suicide note Dr Lydia Wahura left behind
“My mum asked me why I was leaving [the well paying government job] and the words that came out of my mouth were that I felt like a witch doctor,”
she said.
Dr Wahura was particularly vocal about the conditions that medics in Kenya have been subjected to over the past one year. She highlighted the case of the late Dr Stephen Mogusu who died last year with pain.
“I didn’t know Dr Mogusu personally, but his death feels more obscene than other obscene deaths. He worked for months giving care that he couldn’t get. Worked for months without remuneration. No medical cover,”
she said.
“In the days before his death, we were contributing to his hospital bill and a few hours before he died, we were looking for a convalescent plasma for him. Young guy…its obscene…Arrgh.”