A Murang’a-based casual labourer who was left to provide for his days-old daughter after his wife died in the labour ward says a Sunday Nation story highlighting his life struggles has positively impacted his life.
On the morning of March 29 at the Maragua Level Four hospital, Mr Isaac Ndung’u, accompanied by family members, went to receive his 18-day-old daughter whose mother had died while giving birth through Caesarean section.
Ms Carolyne Wanjiru, 23, never woke up after the March 16 surgical process. The hospital has yet to furnish him with an explanation as to what went wrong in a process rated by the 2021 Ministry of health data to be fatal in only one out of 12,000 cases.
Mr Ndung’u now says were it not for the Sunday Nation highlighting his plight, life would have caved under his feet, as he was seeing only gloom in his widowhood and poverty. Bringing up his daughter seemed like an insurmountable task.
The Sunday Nation published his story on April 8, in which he revealed that his estimated budget of bringing up the baby for the first six months was Sh80 per day.
He said his weekly income was Sh300, while the total family daily budget was Sh120. He was left a widower with a four-year-old son and the little daughter. Mr Ndung’u said his wife helped with family finances. She made and sold chapati in Kenol town and would make a Sh100 profit daily.
“When I thought all was lost, feeling like a man on a journey to nowhere, the Sunday Nation came my way and held my hand to open doors of fortune. Today, I can confidently say my bills for bringing up the baby are well catered for in a manner that I would not have mobilised myself,” he said in an interview.
Mr Ndung’u says Nation Media Group, the publisher of this newspaper, made true the biblical words in Isaiah 40:31 (New International Version): “But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, and they will walk and not faint.”
Material help and words of comfort “came in torrents” after the story was published.
“Even my Kandara MP, Chege Njuguna, has, besides monetary support, promised to get me a job so that I can take full charge of my budget.”
He says other help came from anonymous people who just sent money to his mobile phone number. The climax of it all was when Murang’a Governor Irungu Kang’ata called him to a public function in Gatanga on April 12 and “footed the daily bill for my daughter for the next 1,250 days”.
“May all those who responded to my distress through the Sunday Nation have the God of abundance and may the demon of suspicious deaths in our hospitals and society be defeated… My daughter will grow up as a testimony to why all is not lost in humanity,” he said.
