Sole cancer machine down, again

A patient set to undergo radiotherapy at KNH, Nairobi, in January 2015. FILE PHOTO |

What you need to know:

  • Patients on radiotherapy list put on hold after equipment breaks down again since March.
  • Kenyatta National Hospital spokesman says machine handled 100 patients daily instead of 50.

Ms Mariamu Hamisi, a cancer patient, lies on a bench outside the radiotherapy department at Kenyatta National Hospital, Nairobi.

She lies there not just from pain, but also desperation.

When Mariamu and her sister Mwanatumu Nguma boarded a bus to Nairobi at 9pm on Sunday from their Shanzu home in Kisauni, Mombasa, following a referral from Coast General Hospital, they had expected that she would be admitted and started on radiotherapy for her cervical cancer on Monday.

But that morning upon seeing a doctor and being sent to the radiotherapy room to register for treatment, they were met with the news that the machine had stopped functioning.

“We were given a number and told to keep calling to find out whether it (radiotherapy machine) had started working. But on Tuesday, after our calls went unanswered, we boarded a bus and came back only to be met with the same news,” said Mwanatumu, who is here to support her sister whose cancer has progressed to the third stage.

In spite of her state, they are not even sure she can start treatment immediately because they have heard tales of the long queue awaiting radiotherapy.

NEW CASES

KNH, the only public hospital with radiotherapy equipment in the country, is staring at a queue that stretches into next year. Yet about 80 per cent of all cancer patients require radiotherapy.

Although it is difficult to get accurate national data because most data is from Nairobi and other urbanized settings, it is estimated that there are about 39,000 new cases of cancer each year in Kenya with more than 27,000 deaths per year.

Most patients can only afford treatment at the national hospital which charges Sh500 per session as compared to private hospitals whose charges range from Sh3,000 to Sh10,000.

A linear accelerator machine, an additional radiotherapy machine the Ministry of Health promised would be installed by June during the March crisis when the only two machines collapsed leading to the suspension of treatment for close to a month, is yet to be commissioned. One of the older machines was irreparable and was therefore written-off in the same period.

KNH spokesman Simon Ithae said they had to send away patients after the machine showed signs of transmission failure.

Mr Ithae said the machine was handling about 100 patients daily rather than the requisite 50 and was susceptible to such breakdowns as a result of overload.