Crisis as Mbagathi is hit by drug shortage

The biggest hospital operated by the Nairobi City County government is in a crisis arising from shortage of drugs.

Patients in the wards have to buy medicines from private pharmacies.

Not even basic medications such as painkillers, which ordinarily retail for less than Sh10 a pair, were available for inpatients at Mbagathi Hospital.

By Wednesday afternoon, the facility had run out of all medical supplies including laboratory reagents, meaning that even investigation of illnesses was conducted elsewhere.

Patients seeking laboratory services were directed to nearby private facilities or Kenyatta National Hospital – the country’s biggest public referral facility.

The collapse of services at Mbagathi Hospital flies in the face of recent attempts by Governor Mike Sonko's administration to restock county hospitals in the wake of a dispute with the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) over piling debts.

Kemsa appeared to have ignored the directive issued by the Ministry of Health to continue issuing supplies despite the outstanding dues as negotiations on the settlement of the debts got underway.

Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki told the medical supplies agency that the debts owed by Nairobi County estimated at Sh235 million should not stand in the way of services to patients.

Medics who spoke to The Standard in confidence painted a hopeless picture of suffering patients, many too poor to buy medicines from drug stores.

“It is devastating that patients in the wards have to seek medicines from outside,” said a medic who spoke to The Standard in confidence.

The patients need help to buy the drugs, including those that are administered through the drip.

There were fears that other essential supplies, including food, could soon become unavailable, grounding all services.