Nandi Hills MP Hon Alfred Keter has taken a lead at fighting cartels in public institutions. Photo courtesy.
By Silas Nyanchwani via FB
Two quick things:
Those complaining about the MP Shah about the Luo lady who was attacked by thugs and left for dead, clearly don’t know the modus operandi of this private hospitals.
Just get a simple lump behind your neck and get checked in for three days and see the bill you will be slapped with.
The few instances I have had a relative admitted to any private hospitals, for less than a week, even for less threatening diseases, the bill is always past Sh 500,000. While do have some insurance or the other, most insurance are either too small, co-pay or just jokes. Some government civil servants have an insurance of only Sh 200,000. This cannot insulate you from the vagaries of common lifestyle diseases we are facing.
If Kenyatta Hospital was functional, maybe the bill will not have been that scandalous.
Kenya is now lke America where disease is a source of revenue for the rich and big pharma. I am young enough to remember when things were different. When public health care was the best and most affordable. Especially when Kibaki came to power, those first five years were miraculous.
When Jubilee came to power, health care has been going down. In rural outposts, clinics and dispensaries no longer stock something as simple as anti-venom.
Doctors and nurses (especially doctors) have been on strike complaining about these things, but we are very apathetic countries. We care less. Kenyatta Hospital, ironically named after our founding father has become a cesspit of flotsam and jetsam.
All the while foreign and rich Kenyans have conspired to make private health care so scandalously expensive since they know we don’t have options.
Take this for size: My little girl needed a simple excision surgery. I was told at Kenyatta, it would have gone for like Sh 33,000. But at a private hospital, it went for something like Sh 250,000 and a day’s admission.
Guys, that is not sustainable. That is not cool.
For as long as this government rules, we will have WhatsApp groups for all manner of fundraisings, people are going to die leaving such huge debts that will impoverish families.
In my lonely moment, I have this utopian dreams of a country where healthcare is not at the mercy of capitalists. It should be free. But as long as it is in the hand of merciless capitalists with no moral qualms or compunction, I’m sorry, we have ben left for dead.
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