Hospital on the spot for turning away bleeding survivors of Baringo attacks

School children in a police van along Mukutani- Marigat road after they were evacuated by police officers to a safer place at Makutani area in Baringo south on March 15,2017. [PHOTO:KIPSANG JOSEPH/Standard]

A private hospital in Nakuru is on the spot for turning away patients who survived an attack by bandits in Mukutani village in Baringo South.

The patients, including a six-year-old girl and two middle-aged men, are said to have been turned away from St Mary's Mission Hospital in Gilgil after they failed to raise a Sh20,000 deposit.

The girl, Senteiyo Kateiya, writhed in pain for one-and-a-half hours while her uncle and Red Cross officials pleaded with the hospital to attend to her.

Kateiya, a nursery school pupil at Mukutani Primary School, survived the Tuesday night attack in which 11 people were killed when suspected members of the Pokot community attacked homes belonging to members of the Ilchamus community.

The two other patients were turned away on grounds that the hospital's bed capacity was full.

Pkopus Lokwialima is nursing serious injuries at Mediheal Hospital in Nakuru after he failed to get treatment at the mission hospital.

Narrating his ordeal from his hospital bed, Mr Lokwialima said he was rushed to the private facility in a Red Cross ambulance.

"I was unconscious when I was taken to the private hospital... (Red Cross) personnel carried me back to the ambulance and I was brought here," he said.

Krop Longoriangolol, who sustained chest injuries, was also taken to Mediheal after being turned away at St Mary's.

According to Dr Aemen Asher, both patients were in a critical condition and bleeding profusely when they arrived at Mediheal.

However, St Mary's Mission Hospital administrator Seth Manera claimed the patients opted to seek services elsewhere, and that their cases were not critical enough to warrant immediate admission.

"The case (of six-year-old Kateiya) was not an emergency," he said. "We did not turn the patient away; her guardian opted to take her away."