By A STAFF WRITER

IT IS a measure of David Silverstein's self-effacing style that in two weeks of controversy over his handling of a notable patient, he has responded only once to the fusillade of comment and criticism in the media.

And even then, nothing more has emerged about the man in his clipped statements than a modulated sense of grievance at being dragged into a public fight over a professional matter and barely-disguised disdain for what he regards as "incorrect and dogmatic statements."

In more than 20 years of practising medicine in Nairobi, not a single picture has entered local newspaper libraries of the man who tends to the health of Kenya's richest and most powerful. Over the past weeks, readers have waited in vain for his "mug shot" to appear in the Nation, The Standard, or The People or his dapper figure to flit across television screens against a reporter's account of the latest argument over the death of Kenya's Chief Justice Zaccheus Chesoni.

Seen or unseen, Silverstein's exalted position in Kenyan medicine is beyond dispute. The attacks on his handling of Justice Chesoni's fatal illness raised eyebrows for more than one reason; he is not only one of the country's foremost cardiologists but from his opulent surgery at Nairobi Hospital, commands a patient list which reads like a who's-who of the republic. Top on the roll is none other than President Daniel arap Moi.

Openly questioning Silverstein's handling of the Chesoni case was, therefore, to many, the medical equivalent of an opposition broadside. Dr John Matseshe, the chief justice's US-based cousin, who aired the family's misgivings over his treatment, may have been driven by personal grief and professional anger, but the shots he fired at Silverstein's white-coated profile – forceful arguments laid out in the daily newspapers at Ksh148,000 a shot – will reverberate through local hospitals long after he has caught his transAtlantic flight back to New York.

Silverstein is accused of having diagnosed Justice Chesoni's illness as bacterial meningitis tragically late, of giving him inappropriate treatment and of neglecting his eminent patient, "leading his team of five doctors by remote control." He has denied the charges, casting Matseshe's complaints as a "curious attempt at professional assassination of local colleagues and denigration of local expertise." A verdict will be given by an inquiry committee of 11 set up by the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board.

Not many Kenyans can afford a Ksh2,000 fee for a single trip to a doctor. But then, Silverstein's patients are not ordinary Kenyans. Visits to his clinic are strictly by appointment and referral, and as at last weekend the list was full. The good doctor was next due at his clinic on September 27.

When he is in, a Mercedes Benz or Land Rover Discovery occupies his hospital
parking slot.

Away from the bleeps and flashes of cardiac machines, Silverstein relaxes in the quiet of a weekend house on Paradise Island on Lake Naivasha, an hour's drive from the capital. It is a suitably lonely retreat for Kenya's repository of classified medical information: Does the President have throat cancer? What poison was the vice-president given in 1990? Was there more to Moi's one-week disappearance from public view in 1995 than he cared to admit? What is the President's exact age?

While none of these morsels are ever likely to cross Silverstein's lips, he bared enough in President Moi's biography, The Making of African Statesman, to confirm his privileged position at the heart of political power. Along with the head of state's close relatives and childhood friends, the doctor was an invaluable source for British author Andrew Morton as he sought to understand Moi's bewildering personality.

Silverstein, says Morton, was one of the few people who saw President Moi and Charles Njonjo privately during the stormy days of the judicial inquiry which led to the former Attorney-General's removal from politics on suspicion of conspiring against the President. The two men's first public appearance after the inquiry was at Silverstein's 50th birthday party in August 1994.

Of the two politicians' visits to him during the probe, Morton quotes Silverstein as saying:

"One would come in the morning, the other in the afternoon. It was a stressful time for both men. As devout Christians, they both prayed that the commission's conclusions would go their way. Both have true fondness for one another, but I think Njonjo would have to admit that Moi is the better poker player.

As the head of state's medical guardian, Silverstein was on the much-talked-about visit to Washington which preceded Foreign Minister Robert Ouko's death, as he would have been on any of Moi's trips abroad.

He stoutly defended the President in an interview with Morton: "Moi can be politically tough and quite ruthless. But a killer, absolutely not."

Born in Chicago, Silverstein was educated in the United States and the University of Wales in United Kingdom. He is married to a Kenyan.

Even if he is cleared by the team probing the death of Chesoni, his patient for 24 years, the question remains: will medical practice ever be the same again for Dr Silverstein?

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