Schools ill-equipped to take care of sick students, survey reveals

The sudden death of a Form Three student at Alliance High School has exposed the shocking state of healthcare in local learning institutions.

A Nation survey  in various schools across the country revealed ill-equipped or non-existent dispensaries, ill-trained and poorly paid nurses as well as delays in transferring sick students to better equipped hospitals.

In addition, medical fees paid by parents is inadequate to ensure proper management of illness among students.

In the Alliance case, Haroun Kipng’eno Kemboi was admitted to a hospital in Kikuyu on Monday after developing health complications but it was not until Wednesday that he was attended to. He died on Friday.

Kemboi’s family claims they were kept in the dark about his illness, only to be told later that he had died of tuberculosis.

POOR MEDICAL CARE

“We were told that the student was admitted to a local hospital in Kikuyu on Monday, and tests were done on Wednesday.

“However, on Friday they informed [us] that he was unwell only to call again after 15 minutes to say that he was dead,” the family said.

Master Kemboi joins a long list of students who have died in school as a result of poor medical care in recent years.

Though schools are learning centres and not hospitals, they are expected to have basic medical personnel and dispensaries to manage sick students properly, health and education experts say.

A health practitioner, Dr Ojwang’ Lusi, says many schools hold students in sick bays for too long.

“Holding students at sick bays for long could worsen a condition that could be managed easily if reported in time,” he said.

HEALTH POLICY

Another solution would be for the government to introduce a comprehensive health policy for students in boarding schools,  according to Kisumu County Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) executive secretary Zablon Awange.

Medical fees paid by students is often too little to cater for proper equipment and drugs, he said.

“The government should employ clinical officers and nurses for each boarding school and subsidise drugs,’’ he proposed.

The Nation survey revealed that students who fall ill were seriously exposed because many schools have poorly equipped health facilities. The health staff are also overworked and poorly paid. Some are not properly trained.

In the Rift Valley, some of the schools visited had dispensaries but they were not equipped to assist ailing students.

MINOR CASES

Most of the principals interviewed said they only handle minor cases and refer complicated ones to better equipped hospitals. The problem normally occurs when the decision to transfer students takes too long, sometimes  with fatal consequences.

Nakuru Girls’ High School, for instance, has a dispensary with a nurse to handle minor illnesses.

According to the Principal, Mrs Christine Chumba, serious health cases are taken to referral hospitals including Nakuru Level Five Hospital. “We handle health issues as a school and parents are involved only in cases where a student has to be admitted,” she said.

The school hired a nurse after witnessing cases of students from neighbouring institutions dying due to wrong diagnosis.

“With a nurse we are confident that she is able to advise the administration on which steps to take in life threatening cases,” she said.

At Mobamba Secondary School in Kisii county, the nurse resigned in June last year due to poor pay.

MEDICAL EMERGENCIES

 The school is yet to recruit a replacement despite placing adverts in the media, Principal Samuel Nyakundi said.

“It has not been easy and we don’t know what we could have done without the presence of government health facilities nearby,” said Mr Nyakundi.

“Even with the health facilities, there is often the burden of ensuring more acute cases get to Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital, 30 kilometers away,” he added.

 At Nyamache Boys,  Principal Peter Lunani said there is a small dispensary which helps during medical emergencies.

In severe cases, Mr Lunani  personally  drives sick students to Kisii town for treatment.

In Nakuru’s Kambala, Koige and Elburgon secondary schools, students mainly depend on outside health facilities for treatment. A principal in one of the schools, who sought anonymity, said the school’s policy was to call parents to take their children to hospital.

MISDIAGNOSIS

“We prefer to have the parents take their children to their preferred hospitals to avoid misdiagnosis. This happens in cases where the school is not able to access a hospital or a dispensary,” the principal said.

In June 2017, Tracy Sylvia, a 15-year-old Form Three student at Moi High School, Kabarak, died after she collapsed in class.

A post-mortem report showed she died of malaria, but reports from the school’s clinic showed she was being treated for a bacterial infection.

Her father, Mr Josephat Namatsi’s attempts to get answers from the school and the Ministry of Education were futile, forcing him to petition the National Assembly to intervene.

The father claimed the school did not allow Tracy to seek treatment at a proper hospital yet she had medical insurance.

ATTEND LESSONS

The school did not inform him when his daughter fell seriously ill and that she was told to attend lessons even when she was too weak, falling into a coma in class, he said.

The school, he said, did not call him when the decision was made to take her to a Nakuru hospital, where she died. Even after she died, it was Evans Sunrise Hospital that called him, not the school, according to the father.

At St Peter’s High School, Mumias in Kakamega County, the administration has converted the dispensary into a dormitory to ease congestion. The school has now converted a room in the canteen for use by the nurse and clinical officer.

Stories by Eric Matara, Magati Obebo, Joyce Mwihaki, Victor Raballa, Angela Oketch, Shaban Makokha and Elizabeth Ojina