A sad story by a Kenyan lady, Charity Wambui,whose family has been affected by an accident that changed the life of her father for good. Because of mishandling by the hospital and a demand to pay upfront before receiving medical attention, what was a small accident, ended up costing Mr.John Ngari Muriuki his hand and a possibility of losing his land.
Charity Wambui:
October 13th,2013 will forever be engraved in my fathers mind.At 9.30pm,he was involved in a road accident where a small Toyota car he had hired was hit by lorry that was over speeding and and driving on the wrong lane. Due to the nature of that area and the road being a two way road ,the timing of him returning to his lane was late that my dad hit his back side with great impact and his car was pushed almost 50m out of the road.
My dad had been from Karatina nyeri having taken my grandmother, to Karen Hospital ,Karatina Branch for a routine checkup to see a heart specialist.Traffic police nearby rushed to see what had happened and after evaluating, they rushed him to a nearby clinic for first aid then to Thika General Hospital for treatment as he had been badly hurt on his right hand was bleeding profusely.My grandmother was not hurt at all together with the other occupants of the car, my brother and aunt. They were four in number in the car.
While at Thika General Hospital, my aunt called Home and informed the family of the terrible news. My mum and sister organize to have one of my dad’s friends to take them to the Hospital to see him just to find him in a critical condition with bloody clothes and a IV fluid but not much had been done on him as there was no resident doctors that night. They decide to take him to Mater Hospital where they arrived at 3.00 am and to their surprise a deposit of Ksh.75, 000 was demanded. My dad’s ATM was swiped but only Ksh.40, 000 was available. They were forced to go back to Umoja and organize to get the rest Kshs.35, 000 so that surgery would be done on his hand. This was after an X-ray was done and found that he had suffered 4 fractures and an open wound.
When my mum got the money, she sent it to the hospital and at 9 am that morning, he was taken to theater and the surgery was done and lasted for 6 hrs. He come out successful but 2 days afterwards, his ward room was filled with bad odor.This was because the hand was rotting away meaning the surgery did not correct any problem. His hand had no blood supply and that is why it was rotting away. It had to be amputated, the resident doctor at Mater explained to us. It was traumatizing to all of us and my mum couldn’t take it. She was emotional. But what had to be done had to be done as the hand had become septic and dangerous to his health.
Another surgery was done to amputate the hand and our worries about the medical bills started.Only four days at the hospital and the bill was Ksh.300, 000 and over figure.
27 days later, the medical bills had reached a whooping 1.14m but we had put together concerted effort to raise over KSH.300, 000 and over and paid to the hospital meaning the remaining balance would be KSH.706, 850.That meant that he could not be discharged until we clear the bill or leave security in terms of land or a car or a property of worth more than the debt. On our case, we had to give out a Title deed of a 2HA piece of land that my dad had bought when he retired back in 2006.The bone of contention was that he is supposed to pay the hospital the debt lest they sell the piece of land to recover their money.
Now time given has elapsed and we have been unable to pay up the money and we are worried they would dispose of the piece of land. We are also going through tough times as a lot of our resources have to be spent for my dad medication and checkups he attends regularly.
My grandmother who was the reason for that trip has yet passed on a month after the accident due to blood pressure complications and may her soul rest in eternal peace.
We are appealing to anyone reading this publication to come in and donate to us financially so that we can be able to pay up what we owe the hospital and be able to survive through this tough economic time.
Any donations can be sent to us through MPESA No
.0711 969 080
0724 638 508
Mr.John Ngari Muriuki ,
KCB MOI AVENUE BRANCH,
ACC No.1107281121
Or any other medium of sending money.
