Tale of desperate, abandoned patients at Kenyatta National Hospital

If the walls of ward five at Kenyatta National Hospital could speak, they would tell the story of Serah Njoki.

Because Ms Njoki cannot speak, the walls would share her helplessness, despair and pain.

On her lonely bed, Njoki can only gaze. She cannot even breathe on her own, but has to rely on an oxygen tube inserted in her nose. When we reached her bedside, the only sign that she noticed our presence was a blink. Once a vibrant woman of light complexion, her skin is slowly darkening.

For two months now, Njoki, 36, has been living with a bullet lodged in the left side of her head, which has rendered her paralysed. She cannot talk, turn or eat solid food and her emaciated body is almost getting sucked into the KNH hospital bedding.

Her mother tells us it was a case of a stray bullet from police, who were in hot pursuit of a runaway thug. She was due for surgery just before the doctors’ strike began. But right now the family can only hope and pray. In fact pray more than hope that the strike ends quickly.

“She is supposed to be in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). I even have no idea when she will be sent to the theatre and no one is telling us anything. Even the nurses have no information,” she says. She adds: “You can see her wound, it is always oozing of pus and I have to put a damp towel beneath her head to dry it up.”

A week into the strike, Njoki’s family requested to have her transferred to a private institution but they were informed that they had to pay an accrued bill of Sh200,000, money that they do not have. She explains that nurses can only do as much: “Lakini sisi tumeachia Mungu (We have now left everything to God).

QUIET CORRIDORS

Njoki’s predicament is just one of the many cases of patients left stranded in the largest referral hospital in the country. The rest of the wards are empty. In fact they are closed. In Njoki’s ward, which houses a maximum of eight patients, now only has four. A handful of nurses could be spotted pacing along the quiet corridors doing the little they can.

One can only imagine the state of other patients. Are they in a private facility somewhere else or suffering at home?

But to those patients who are around, not all share the same story as Njoki. A chat with some of them revealed that some doctors do sneak in at night as late as 10pm to check on them. And never would the doctors dare come in their usual white coats and stethoscopes hanging on their necks.

A security personnel confirmed the same, saying they do come in dressed casually that one would not even have a hint that they were doctors. “Some wear sandals and dressed in t-shirts with caps. Rarely would one come in the usual suit and tie,” he says.

DOCTOR SHOWS UP

Edna Mwende is one of the patients whose doctor checks on her always. She was admitted on November 29, and has already undergone a successful bladder surgery.

“I do not know about other patients... but for me, my doctor shows up as usual. Things are pretty normal for me,” she says. Her neighbour Eveline Sande confirms the same.

“I am aware there is a strike but my doctor does check up on me almost daily. And he leaves the nurse with instructions. But most times he sneaks in at night... in civilian,” she says. The doctors strike is in its third week now and on Monday, 290 consultants working at KNH downed their tools in solidarity with the striking doctors who are demanding a 300 per cent increment.

According to a nurse who insisted on anonymity, doctors at KNH will still treat a patient in dire need of check-up or surgery “but through ‘outside’ arrangements which means the patient would end up digging deeper in their pockets”.

Director Medical Services Jackson Kioko had earlier maintained that the strike of 290 consultants would only affect cold cases but emergency services will be offered.