Mother who owes hospital Sh66m cannot wait to take her baby home

A nurse attends to Baby Jordel as his mother, Unny Nyaata, looks on at The Mater Misericordiae Hospital in Nairobi. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]

Inside a private ward, Jordel, a boy aged three years and seven months, lies face-up on an elevated cot. On his right, a stuffed yellow toy keeps him company while a vital signs monitor on the left side of the bed blinks and displays graphs and figures.

The boy’s primary care nurse wheels a trolley into the room. She checks his heart rate and temperature, attaches a suctioning syringe to a tracheostomy tube on Jordel’s neck and pumps out secretions blocking his airway.