By Abdullahi Murithadoh

Alas, it was finally my turn.

I knocked and stepped in after a six-hour waiting period. Only God knows how many patients the doctor had seen before me, but the exhaustion etched into his features was more than clinical; it was a testament to the sheer volume of human suffering he was expected to process. Behind me, twenty more souls sat in quiet resignation. Some had already left, hissing under their breath as they sought healing elsewhere, provided their pockets allowed for such a luxury. In this place, everyone eventually learns the precise location of their limits.

Inside the small consulting room, the doctor looked worn to the marrow. Outside, the patients looked no better. Two doctors served hundreds of people: one in the emergency unit fighting to snatch a single life from the brink, the other seated before me, trying to respond to a tide of complaints that never truly recedes.

At some point, the question becomes unavoidable: who exactly is to blame? Perhaps it is the system that fails to employ enough hands to meet the growing census. Perhaps it is the students who cannot afford the sanitised efficiency of private care. Or perhaps it is the doctors themselves, who remain within the system by some combination of choice and necessity.

Of course, none of those can be the issue. Those in charge cannot be blamed. They have done their part, raising fees while maintaining a staffing level that can only be described as efficiently limited. The students, therefore, must be the problem. Their inability to simply afford better healthcare is a personal failing. As for the doctors, they know where the exit routes are. If they choose to stay, it must be for reasons best known to them.

Exhaustion, we are led to believe, is a myth. If you are tired, it is merely evidence that you are not disciplined enough. We are being prepared for a fast-moving world where adaptation is the only currency. Only the truly committed can keep up. Some students, unfortunately, are too slow to appreciate the privilege of this pressure. They call it excessive, as though the crushing weight were not the entire point of the exercise.
What greater training could there be than compressing an eighteen-month syllabus into ten months? It forces a specific kind of understanding. It accelerates growth through sheer friction. It ensures we learn faster than those who came before us. It is efficiency at its finest. And yet, when we struggle, we are reminded to be grateful. We are blamed for not appreciating a system clearly designed to sharpen, stretch, and refine us. How ungrateful of us to bleed while being polished.

Sometimes, this pressure shifts from the academic to the visceral. Two weeks ago, just days before my Physiology CA, I found myself staring at my phone, watching the battery percentage drop with the slow, rhythmic certainty of a countdown to failure. I looked up at the mosque ceiling and hoped, briefly, that the light would return. It never did. Still, I kept hoping, even when reality offered no evidence to support the feeling.

If I am honest, the blame is mine. I should have prepared for the darkness. I should have acquired a power bank strong enough to survive the systematic outages, rather than the one I eventually bought, which barely manages to revive my phone once. I knew the electricity supply was a ghost, yet I planned my life as though it would be reliable for me.

Are students meant to study in ideal conditions? We are told to adjust. After all, the school is trying. We receive regular official updates about the irregular power supply every market day. At least we are informed. Even when there is no light, we are never surprised. Perhaps that is the point: to manage expectations until disappointment feels like a natural physiological function.

Then there is the matter of getting things done. Assignments are online, naturally. But how one manages to get online has quietly become part of the hidden curriculum: a practical test of innovation. Unfortunately, many of us are still failing. We depend on the school Wi-Fi,  installed to offer what feels like a masterclass in Camouflage. It appears when it wants and disappears whenever it pleases. For reasons best known to management, this course is not listed on the portal. We are expected to discover its nuances through instinct, trial, and survival.
Yet many still fail to see the pattern. Perhaps it takes a certain kind of wisdom to attempt to connect to what is not stable, and to depend on what does not stay connected.

In the halls of residence, these lessons reach their conclusion. Water does not flow consistently, but that only teaches the art of strategic planning. Restrooms are often in poor condition, but that only builds a rugged resourcefulness. Kitchenette pipes clog frequently, yet that only develops the virtue of patience. Even the broken windows begin to feel like intentional lessons in adaptation, reminders that comfort is a distraction from the task of becoming.

Some students see problems. Others are told to see the preparation. Over time, the difference begins to blur.

When complaints arise, we are reminded to write letters. We do this not because they will change the infrastructure, but because the act reminds us that we once believed change was possible. Yet even that belief is gently corrected. We are expected to keep hoping, even when hope has no evidence. To renew trust after repeated disappointment. To continue adjusting, continuing, and enduring. Because of that, we are told, is how we survive.

In the end, perhaps that is the real lesson. The success of the system is not found in what it provides, but in what it teaches us to tolerate. It teaches us to wait without asking questions, to adjust without resistance, and to endure without expecting anything to improve. Slowly, almost without noticing, it achieves its greatest objective. It convinces us that this is normal. And then, it teaches us to be grateful for it.