Shocking hospital reports expose growing inequality

Recently, the health fraternity treated us to heartbreaking episodes. It started with the shocking revelation that some 60 infants died at a Kiambu hospital.

Then, a dad was caught sneaking out his baby in a traveller’s bag at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) because he could not afford medical bills. It didn't end there. A woman lost her child. As if that was not traumatic enough, she was forced to trek, carrying the body to the morgue.

These are depressing stories. Such accounts are often associated with war-torn countries like Syria. That they happen here is a manifestation of the moral bankruptcy of our economy, bad governance, and grinding poverty.

The triple heartbreaks paint a bleak sketch of how poverty has pervaded our society, subjecting folks to grief and indignity.

They expose the depth of inequality, deprivation and social injustice.

Take the case of Boniface Murage, for instance. Desperation forced him to hide his daughter in a bag. No dad does that for fun. But then, he couldn’t raise Sh56,000. He feared detention at the hospital. But he is not alone; our hospitals have become informal prisons punishing people for their poverty.

Yet, a staggering Sh5 trillion, stolen from Kenyans is reportedly stashed in secret offshore accounts. The Ministry of Health controls Sh55.6 billion in the current budget.

Mr Murage may not be aware of the trillions or billions. Still, he has a whiff of the industrial-scale graft haemorrhaging the country. He might also have heard of a multi-billion shilling scandal involving container clinics, and another one at the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF).

Accounts in the press and from the courts paint a grossly sorry picture of a country helplessly in the clutches of Mafia-like corrupt mandarins. Apart from raw plunder of epochal scales, it appears we’re determined to manufacture poverty. Just why are we killing all key centres of wealth creation like agriculture and manufacturing?

That’s why narratives that we’re hopeless for want of resources don't wash. What’s scarce though is prudence, integrity, strategic thinking and empathy among the custodians of our public policies. The end result is spiralling and dehumanising poverty.

It’s amazing that this social injustice against the population doesn’t prick the conscience of the elite. It’s worrying indeed that it doesn’t create embarrassment, shame and guilt.

The Kiambu tragedy, for instance, produced more brouhaha than remorse. For Mr Murage, the State apparatus pressed felony charges. For Immaculate Auma, the mother who was forced to trek holding her dead baby, no one cared.

Right to health

Yet, health is an existential issue and the State is duty-bound to ensure that citizens can access this service at affordable, if not free, terms. Lest we forget, the right to health is anchored in the Constitution, under Article 43 (1) (a).

Indeed, in a country where a mind-blowing 40 per cent of the population live below the poverty threshold, and the cost of medical services is prohibitive, the need for a quality universal health care regime cannot be overemphasised.

In fact, in capitalist societies like ours, the poor will always rely on public services like schools, hospitals and even recreational facilities. Trouble is that public service in this country is a frustrating enterprise. Public servants largely treat the masses as second-class citizens and as if the services offered are a piece of favour. This toxic and skewed attitude must change.

A state that collects tax, and whose citizens comply with laws and norms, has to honour its part of the social contract. That’s not too much to ask. Or is it? In any case, that’s how to sustain a functional, dignified and progressive society.

But we cannot talk of a shared future when a majority of the citizens are subjected to indignity because of a failing healthcare system.

It can’t be a shared future when the corrupt elite mismanage and undermine public health systems then seek private healthcare elsewhere. That's a fraud on Kenyans.