Many people associate hospital treatment with 'getting better', the restoration to health and normal life. The onset of a life-threatening disease such as cancer, however, can transform the... Show moreMany people associate hospital treatment with 'getting better', the restoration to health and normal life. The onset of a life-threatening disease such as cancer, however, can transform the hospital into a place of constant struggle and suffering. Hospitalisation in this sense coincides with the deterioration of patients' and their families' overall wellbeing. Drawing on twelve months of ethnographic research in a cancer ward in Kenya, this monograph shows that patients' suffering should be viewed within the context of a wider spectrum of adversity. The book demonstrates the ambiguity of a hospital stay and treatment, showing how a hospital can both alleviate as well as increase human suffering. The author advocates patient-centred hospital ethnography as a way to improve the understanding of cancer patients' needs, both medical and non-medical, as they struggle to restore their wellbeing. Benson A Mulemi is a medical Anthropologist from Kenya. He obtained a Master of Arts degree in Anthropology from the Institute of African Studies, University of Nairobi in 1998 and was admitted to the PhD programme at AMIDSt, University of Amsterdam in 2004. He has worked on several projects as a researcher and lecturer at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, visiting lecturer at the Institute of African Studies; University of Nairobi, Christ the Teacher Institute for Education, Tangaza College (affiliated to St. Mary's University Minnesota, USA), Tangaza and Hekima Colleges of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa in Nairobi. Show less
Health and healing in Africa have increasingly become subject to monetization and commodification, in short, the market. Based on fieldwork in nine countries, this volume offers different... Show moreHealth and healing in Africa have increasingly become subject to monetization and commodification, in short, the market. Based on fieldwork in nine countries, this volume offers different perspectives on these emerging markets and the way medical staff, patients, households and institutions navigate them in their quest for well-being. Contributions: Introduction: Economic ethnographies of the marketization of health and healing in Africa (Rijk van Dijk and Marleen Dekker); Milking the sick: medical pluralism and the commoditization of healthcare in contemporary Nigeria (Akinyinka Akinyoade and Bukola Adeyemi Oyeniyi); Organizing monies: the reality and creativity of nursing on a hospital ward in Ghana (Christine Böhmig); Market forces threatening school feeding: the case for school farming in Nakuru town, Kenya (Dick Foeken et al.); Dashed hopes and missed opportunities: malaria control policies in Kenya (1896-2009) (Kenneth Ombongi and Marcel Rutten); The market for healing and the elasticity of belief: medical pluralism in Mpumalanga, South Africa (Robert Thornton); Medical knowledge and healing practices among the Kapsiki/Higi of northern Cameroon and northeastern Nigeria (Walter E.A. van Beek); The commodification of misery: markets for healing, markets for sickness (Zanzibar) (Nadine Beckmann); Individual or shared responsibility: the financing of medical treatment in rural Ethiopian households (Marleen Dekker); Can't buy me health: financial constraints and health-seeking behaviour in rural households in central Togo (Andr‚ Leliveld et al.); Marriage, commodification and the romantic ethic in Botswana (Rijk van Dijk). [ASC Leiden abstract] Show less
