{Newly appointed Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu has warned health institutions against denying any treatment to patients because they are unable to raise money upfront.
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According Dr Mailu, hospitals should treat patients and bill them later.
“It is not in the interest of any of us to deny a Kenyan treatment in a public or private institution,” he said.
The CS said the government had provided free delivery services for pregnant women, adding that such services should be offered indiscriminately.
Dr Mailu was speaking to journalists yesterday at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi when he visited two patients who were airlifted from Mandera County after they were injured when a bus they were travelling in was attacked by Al-Shabaab terrorists.
Abdirahman Adan, 18, a student, is still at the hospital’s ICU but in stable condition. He was shot at least four times in the stomach.
The other patient, 34-year-old Salah Sabdow Farah, a primary school deputy headteacher also sustained gunshot wounds on his buttocks and is responding well to treatment.
The hospital bill for the two men, who were admitted to KNH on December 22, will be waived, said Dr Mailu.
They were shot when they confronted the terrorists as they tried to separate Muslims from Christians who were travelling in the bus that was headed to Mandera from Nairobi.
Dr Mailu denied reports on social media that the pair had been denied care at the hospital because they could not raise treatment fees.
“The two have been operated on and they will be well, the government will foot that bill to the total,” said the Health CS.
KNH chief executive Lily Koros, who was with the CS during the visit, said the two patients would be allowed to go home once they heal and are no longer in danger.
Source:[Daily Nation:Hospitals warned against rejecting patients->http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Hospitals-warned-against-rejecting-patients/-/1056/3011934/-/ty5np/-/index.html]
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