Punish hospitals denying patients emergency care

Davis Lichuma, who was tortured by suspected State agents and left for dead by the roadside during the June 25 demonstrations, was reportedly denied treatment at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) because he could not pay consultation fees.

Mr Lichuma was abducted and maltreated for days only to be denied life-saving emergency care. This blatant disregard of human life is shocking, especially coming from KNH, the biggest and most reputable public hospital that should be setting a good example to our entire healthcare system.

The Constitution, under Article 43(1)(a), guarantees every person the right to the highest attainable standard of health. Further, Article 43(2) provides that no person shall be denied emergency medical treatment. Yet despite this, reports of patients being denied emergency care keep on cropping up.

This unconscionable practice exposes a healthcare system that has normalised cruelty. A patient bleeding from torture wounds, barely conscious, should never have been made to prove his ability to pay before receiving care. That such a demand was made speaks to an institutional culture where billing departments wield more power over a patient’s fate than the Hippocratic oath does over a doctor’s conscience.

KNH’s explanation, if any is given, will likely point to administrative procedures that cannot be allowed to trump the Constitution. No hospital policy supersedes Article 43(2). If KNH systems are not built to deliver immediate emergency care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay, then those systems are unconstitutional and must be rebuilt.

This, however, is not merely a KNH problem. Across the country, hospitals demand for upfront payment before emergency intervention. Families have been known to solicit funds via mobile money while a relative lies dying in a hospital corridor, staff unmoved until the alert tone confirms payment.

The law criminalises denial of emergency treatment, yet enforcement has been nonexistent. Hospital administrators who tolerate such denials should face licence suspension and prosecution. Lichuma’s case offers the State a rare opportunity to make an example.