Hospitals are deathtraps that need reforms

Workers at Kenyatta National Hospital demonstrate over delayed payment of allowances, on August 6, 2018. The Health ministry continuously fails the many Kenyans who depend on it. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • When the demand for critical care is higher than the service available, a huge imbalance that costs lives is created.
  • There is an urgent need for leadership to take the management of the Health ministry seriously.

Kenya’s public health system is extremely harsh to the majority of caregivers and receivers.

From theft scandals at the Health ministry costing taxpayers billions of shillings, several dishonoured collective bargaining agreements, scourge of counterfeit drugs, National Hospital Insurance Fund scandals to poor facilities.

Falling ill in Kenya is indeed the most traumatic experience for anyone who isn’t on government payroll with medical tourism privileges. It’s so bad that it can pass as the ultimate punishment for being poor.

You would think that the struggles of everyday people would be a priority for the leadership now that universal healthcare is one of the Big Four, or that at the very least, they would set up mechanisms to protect people. Sadly, the focus is elsewhere, especially making money.

BROKEN SYSTEM

This particular approach to leadership has exposed the majority to indignity by normalising the constant suffering, which is a direct result of failed systems.

For example, there is absolutely nothing normal about the harrowing story of Immaculate Auma — a woman who carried the body of her dead baby for about five kilometres to a mortuary because hospital officials couldn’t help with transportation.

Neither is it normal that a 22-year-old man was arrested and charged in court for trying to smuggle his newborn baby from a hospital because he could not afford the bill.

Of course, the simplistic answer was to blame the poor man who had decided to procreate.

Lastly, there’s not a single thing that’s normal about 60 newborns who died in a level five hospital within a span of two months. This is what a broken system looks like when leadership is at its worst.

RESOURCES

Emergency health services are yet another monstrous experience for many poor Kenyans.

I remember the tragic story of a road crash where a man died after spending 18 hours in an ambulance waiting for intensive care services at four different hospitals.

There weren’t enough ICU beds back then, neither are they enough now. As recently as 2018, a senior medical specialist at Kenyatta National Hospital stated that the hospital only had 71 ICU beds. Of these, only 31 were functional.

The specialists were pleading with the government to increase ICU beds, as another woman had just died because of lack of a bed.

When the demand for critical care is higher than the service available, a huge imbalance that costs lives is created.

It is therefore crucial to continue questioning the role of leadership in ploughing money into a public health system that has numerous gaps with zero consequences.

ACCOUNTABILITY

There is an urgent need for leadership to take the management of the Health ministry seriously. The ministry continuously fails the many Kenyans who depend on it.

County governments should also play their roles. The blame game between the national and county governments regarding who is responsible when systems fail should cease.

The buck must stop somewhere. Issues of drug shortages, under-staffing in hospitals, insufficient ICU beds, and payment of nurses and doctors should be sorted once and for all.

The plunder within state institutions should be investigated and addressed because they are worsening the provision of quality services.

That said, the refusal by leaders to realise that those who use public hospitals deserve quality service is contemptuous.