Kenyatta National Hospital has been receiving much negative media coverage lately. If the referral facility is not in the news for corruption, it is in for rape of breastfeeding mothers, theft of new born babies or negligently performing a brain surgery on the wrong patient.
In January there was outpouring of rage over allegations of abuse at Kenyatta National Hospital. The hospital was accused of being ‘a hotspot’ of all kinds of criminal activities. One Mildred Owiso alleged in her ‘Facebook’ page that she had met a woman who fought off a rape attempt in the lift.
The rape attempt allegedly took place as the woman went to the nursery, on the first floor. The maternity ward is on the third floor, while other women are housed on the ground floor. In March, reports emerged of a monumental blunder-brain surgery performed on the wrong patient. The Ministry of Health suspended the hospital’s Chief Executive Officer Lily Koros to pave way for investigations.
It should not escape the eyes of many Kenyans that the hospital has performed exceedingly well in several occasions. Kenyatta National Hospital has performed some delicate surgeries like separating conjoined twins showing it has the expertise and capacity to execute its mandate. The apparent recent incompetence at the largest referral hospital in East and Central Africa is worrying.
Cases of professional negligence, irresponsibility and general failures are rather too frequent. As a result of such malaise, patients who should be attended to at the hospital, have to seek more expensive assistance elsewhere. Kenyatta National Hospital is known for offering poor services to patients, despite being comparably better equipped and enjoying a large pool of specialists and medics.
We have to say it is this professional sluggishness by staff that discredits legitimate efforts by the hospital’s leadership to get donors to help boost its infrastructure. However, KNH is only a glimpse into the deplorable treatment that patients go through in public health institutions countrywide.
The government through the Ministry of Health and Council of Governors (COG) has a lot of work to do stem this sector-wide culture of corruption, laziness and negligence that KNH exemplifies. Negligent or corrupt staff must be held personally responsible for their misdeeds and emotional torture the likes of the patient whose skull was opened wrongly endured.
When Dr. Fred Matiang’i was the Cabinet Secretary of Education, he had devised a quality assurance and service delivery assessment strategy that involved unannounced visits to schools countrywide. This can be useful assessment strategy for hospitals too.
The Ministry of Health and County Governors can involve expert investigators visiting hospitals or clinics incognito so as to experience the treatment ordinary patients receive from health care givers.
Along with undercover tours there can be formal, but surprise visits to health facilities, much like the education ministry to schools. The governors and the national government must also move with speed to recruit more doctors in order to end endemic health care givers shortage.
