My husband died at hospital’s gate, are you happy now?

By LEONARD KULEI

“I am dead, I have been left dead... some of us just walk and people think all is fine. I have cried tonnes of tears inside this house because my family has nothing else to look up to,” Mama Sote Kipchumba breaks down as she settles down for this interview with The Standard On Sunday.

Suddenly she rises and asks this writer to accompany her behind the family house, where she points at a fresh mound of soil: “See what the government has done to me, to us. See for yourself. This is my husband who died as the striking health workers watched at Kabartonjo. Are they happy now?”

Sote recalls how her little daughter went running to the farm in the morning to deliver the disturbing news of her father’s condition: “‘Mum! Mum!”.. she called me out.. “Dad is getting worse. He is vomiting and we have run out of water. He sent me to call you. Please come and help’.”

Not knowing this would be the last time she would see her father, the little girl rushed to the nearest Boruyo centre and bought some painkillers.

But before returning, her mother had made frantic efforts and called a motorbike operator to rush her husband to Kabartonjo Disrict Hospital, some 100km away. This is the heartrending story of Sote, whose husband died last week at the gate of Kabartonjo District Hospital as health workers watched.

When The Standard On Sunday caught up with her in her home in Boruiyo, Bartabwa Division of Baringo District on Thursday, Sote sat pensively on a stone outside her house.

Her fingers dug into her wrinkled face as she lazily moved a short stick up and down.

Forcefully discharged

Hundreds of kilometres in Samburu County, Lchorro Lelarai village is engulfed in a sombre mood, after a 12-year-old boy died at the local medical centre.

The family says the death of the class four pupil at Lchoro Primary School, occurred three days after he and several other patients were forcefully evacuated from Maralal District Hospital, where he had been admitted to following a short illness. According to his aunt Nancy Lengerded who was taking care of the boy, they were told to leave the hospital ward immediately the strike began.

She said the boy’s file, which contained the medical history, was also confiscated by the health officers who forced them out of the ward.

The boy’s body stayed remained inside their house for two days after his death because there were no mortuary services.

The absence of the file made things even worse for the family as a burial permit could not be obtained without the relevant documents contained in the file relating to his treatment and the ultimate death.

“The whole process was so frustrating and as a family, life was so miserable for us. It is the area assistant chief who issued us with the burial permit,” said Lengerded.

She prays that no family should be subjected to the same situation again, especially in places like Samburu, where no other health facility apart from the district hospital is equipped with mortuary services.

Samburu County Executive Secretary in charge of health Richard Napei urged health workers within the county to resume work, promising dialogue with them to deliberate on their request.

“It is very hard for our people to access treatment in few private clinics with exorbitant prices especially with the high poverty rates in the area,” Napei said.